


Breaking Point

by gaelicspirit



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Almost-but-not-quite Lucy/Wyatt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Team as Family, Time Travel, hurt!Wyatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9188057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaelicspirit/pseuds/gaelicspirit
Summary: Set after S1 Epi 9,Last Ride of Bonnie & Clyde. After bouncing erratically through time for a confusing week, Flynn finally lands at one point in history long enough for the team to go after him. They are immediately thrown into the turmoil of World War I, wreaking havoc on Wyatt. When Lucy is captured as a means to manipulate the team, Wyatt and Rufus take a calculated, but dangerous risk to get her back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer/Warning** : Nothing you recognize is mine. Including the odd movie line. I like to work in movie quotes where I can.
> 
>  **Author’s Note** : I had an idea after seeing Episode 9...but then it was Kripke’d by the ending of Episode 10 and I almost abandoned it. However, a friend pushed me to go ahead and write and post (thank you) and I’m clearly weak when it comes to spending more time with characters I like, so here we are. This isn’t really AU…I guess you could call it more “canon divergent” than anything. Pretend you haven’t seen Episode 10 yet and you should be good. 
> 
> Check out the notes at the end of Part 2 for research info and such. Also, fair warning, angst abounds. This is a straight-up h/c fic, but…here there be angst as well. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Many thanks to ThruTerrysEyes and pandi19 for the pre-read. You guys are made of all things awesome.

**

_“I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness; I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life...I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me.”_

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

* * *

 **Part One** _  
Present Day_

Jiya held his hand loosely, fingers tangled enough to reassure him of her presence. She led the way down the quiet hall of Mason Industries; it was late enough—or, rather early enough—that the crew was still home, or wherever they spent their time when it wasn’t here. Rufus followed her willingly, purposely lagging a bit behind so that he could watch her move without accidentally catching her eye.

He loved watching her move. Almost as much as he loved listening to her talk. And smile. And tuck her hair behind her ear the way she did when solving a particularly tangled puzzle.

“Hold up,” she whispered, stopping abruptly and turning her wrist so that he was positioned just behind her.

Confused, Rufus looked to his right toward the smaller meeting room where Agent Christopher usually broke down the outcomes of their missions…when time allowed, that is. The door was closed, the solid glass panel in the center dark except for a small, ambient-like glow. Rufus frowned; was someone in there?

“He’s been in there the last three nights,” Jiya said softly, her brown eyes on the glass door. “I just wanted to make sure he didn’t see us.”

“Who?” Rufus whispered, leaning close to her, trying to peer sideways into the room through the glass.

“Wyatt,” Jiya replied, glancing over her shoulder at him, then tugging him swiftly forward before Rufus could land on an appropriate response.

He said nothing until they were in the control room, the lifeboat looking empty and sad without the bank of lights illuminating it as they did just before he, Wyatt, and Lucy departed for a mission. Jiya dropped into a chair behind her computer terminal, then kicked another in his direction. It hit the back of Rufus’ legs and he sat down, using his heels to wheel himself over to her.

“What do you mean, he’s been in there for three nights?” Rufus pressed, pitching his voice low, though they were far enough away from the conference room he was fairly certain they wouldn’t be overheard.

Jiya lifted a shoulder and reached over to fire up her computer. “Since you got back from dealing with Bonnie and Clyde,” she said. “He came back that night, real late, and then every night since.”

Rufus frowned, troubled by this information on multiple levels, some of which he wasn’t prepared to explore. “How do you know this?”

Jiya glanced askance at him, her eyebrow arched scornfully. “Who do you think monitors the badges and security cameras around here?”

Rufus nodded slowly, eyes tracking to the computer screen as she called up a four-square image of videos, tipping her head toward the top-right image first.

“I noticed it when I came in early the day after you got back to work on the algorithm—the one I want to show you,” she explained. “He didn’t say anything to me, just left before any of the crew showed up. So, I got curious.”

She clicked a few keys and Rufus leaned forward, eyes on the screen.

“He left like everyone else, then came back late and just…wandered around,” she narrated as she moused through the time-stamped images.

“Almost looks like he’s lost,” Rufus muttered, puzzled.

“That’s what I thought, too,” Jiya’s reply was soft, almost sad, and pulled Rufus’ gaze toward her. “But…probably not in the same way you just meant,” she amended.

“What do _you_ mean?” Rufus asked, tilting his head curiously.

“Look.” Jiya cued up different images from two nights ago, and then from the previous night. “He wanders around the wardrobe area, the library, pulls out a couple books but never actually reads them, and always ends up in that conference room, on the couch, with that iPod on.”

Rufus remembered the glowing ambient light in the room: an iPod screen.

“He’s not here all day, but it’s like…,” Jiya lifted a shoulder.

“He doesn’t want to go home at night,” Rufus concluded.

“What happened back in 1934?” Jiya asked, pinning him with that direct gaze that made his heart expand inside his chest until he couldn’t take a breath.

“What?” Rufus blinked back at her.

“Back with Bonnie and Clyde? Did something happen that you didn’t report?”

Rufus glanced back at the computer screen, then in the direction of the conference room. “Not that involved Wyatt,” he replied cryptically. “I mean, I wasn’t with them for a good portion of the time, but they both seemed fine when they came out of the cabin….”

The implication of that time apart leeched the color from his words; Jiya put her hand on his as his voice tapered.

“What is it?”

Rufus shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he replied honestly. “Just that they spent the night together in that cabin with Bonnie and Clyde. They _seemed_ okay, but…I mean,” he glanced at Jiya, tipping his head to the side in concession, “Lucy’s like a book. Every emotion is like, _bam_. Right there.”

“But…not Wyatt,” Jiya surmised.

“Hell, no,” Rufus scoffed. “That guy’s like a freaking…Corellian.”

Jiya grinned at his comparison, and Rufus couldn’t help his reflexive smile. He glanced at the computer screen again.

“When has he usually bailed in the morning?”

“Around six. Ish,” Jiya replied.

“So, that gives us, what…almost three hours?”

Jiya nodded, her lips tipping up once more in that smile that was Rufus’ undoing. When she looked at him like that, he would do just about anything she asked. Part of him wanted to tell her. But another part of him was terrified at the prospect.

“I’ve wanted to show you this algorithm all week,” Jiya grinned, turning eagerly to her computer.

"Is that a euphemism?” Rufus teased.

“If you play your cards right,” Jiya returned.

Two hours later, Rufus found himself alone at Jiya’s computer, jotting down breaks in the code she’d started, and thinking about how to build the right bridges to finish what she’d started. Jiya was on a coffee run, accurately assessing that to get through whatever the next day brought them after pulling an all-nighter, they would need a serious caffeine hit. Sitting back with a sigh and stretching his arms over his head, Rufus found himself glancing once more toward the conference room.

Before he could think better of it, Rufus gathered up his notebook, calculations, and pen, set the security lock on Jiya’s computer, and made his way quietly from the control room to the hall. The conference room was completely dark; no light from the iPod to give away Wyatt’s position. Rufus opened the door, holding the latch so that it caught soundlessly when he closed the door behind him.

Moving into the room, he saw Wyatt lying with his head propped up on one arm of the couch, one booted foot on the other, and a boot resting on the ground. There was something about the man’s tense posture that looked like he was ready to run at a moment’s notice. As the song changed on his iPod, the screen lit up, catching Rufus’ eye and briefly illuminating Wyatt’s upper body.

The man’s face was turned away, toward the back of the couch, his arms folded across his belly, the white cord from his earbuds standing out against what was either a black or dark-gray Henley. Rufus glanced at the song and drew his head back in slight surprise.

He hadn’t pegged Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan as a Pearl Jam guy.

Which made him wonder if that was actually _Wyatt’s_ iPod…or Jessica’s. Rufus debated with himself for another minute, staring down at his sleeping teammate, before canceling his instinct to show Wyatt what Jiya had come up with. Instead, he moved to the conference table and turned on one of the small dome lights at middle of the table, quietly rolling one of the chairs back and sitting down to continue his calculations.

It had always been an easy thing for Rufus to get lost in his work. Numbers were like poetry to him; they breathed, showing him a world that existed both within his reality and outside of it. The numbers folded easily into a story that in turn created possibilities he’d learned few could see, and even less understood.

Therefore, it took him several minutes to realize that quiet of the conference room had been broken by soft murmuring. Drawing his head up from his notebook, Rufus glanced around, momentarily confused, finally landing on the man lying on the couch on the other side of the room.

Wyatt was whispering something, Rufus now realized, but the words were too rapid and muddled for him to make out. His head was turned on the arm of the couch to now face the dimly-lit room and Rufus could see the man’s brows were pulled close across the bridge of his nose, a frown bending the edges of his mouth.

“Wyatt,” Rufus called, softly at first, afraid to startle him, then, realizing he may not be able to hear him over the music in his ears, “Wyatt!”

Wyatt jerked and opened bloodshot eyes to stare directly at Rufus. For a moment, Rufus wasn’t sure if the man actually _saw_ him, until Wyatt reached up to pull the earbuds from his ears and pushed himself upright, dragging a hand down his face. In the quiet of the room, Rufus could hear callouses of Wyatt’s hand rasp across the beard stubble on his jawline.

“What’re you doin’ here, man?” Wyatt mumbled.

“Working with Jiya on something,” Rufus replied honestly, wincing at the way Wyatt’s blue irises stood out vividly in the sea of irritated red. “What are _you_ doing here?”

To his credit, Wyatt didn’t bother making up an excuse. He simply dropped his hands into his lap, and stared with a disturbingly hollow expression into the middle distance. Rufus waited him out, curiosity approaching dangerous levels.

“What are you guys working on?” Wyatt finally deflected, wiping grit from his eyes with the pad of his thumb.

“Jiya figured out how we can track Flynn from the lifeboat,” Rufus revealed.

Wyatt frowned, tilting his head and leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees, the iPod held loosely in one hand. “Thought we could already do that?”

Rufus tipped one hand out in concession. “We can tell when he’s returned to our present time, yeah. But with all this erratic bouncing around he’s been doing—not staying in one place long enough to get out of the ship let alone change anything—she figured it would be handy to track him in case…well, in case he doesn’t go back to the present the next time we go after him.”

Frown still in place, Wyatt lifted his chin. “Can we travel from one time in history to another without returning to the present?”

“Not…yet,” Rufus sighed, looking back down at his notebook. “That’s the piece I’m working on.”

The handle to the door bounced once, startling both of them, and Jiya pushed the door open with her knee, balancing a drink carrier of coffees in one hand and bag of bagels in another. Wyatt stood quickly and took the coffees from her, earning an appreciative smile. Rufus caught Jiya’s eyes as she moved past Wyatt and shook his head once.

“Morning, fellas,” she greeted smoothly, skimming over the obvious question of Wyatt’s chosen sleeping location. “Thought we could all use some fuel.”

“Thanks, but, uh,” Wyatt stood awkwardly holding the coffees, “I should probably get back—“

“Have some breakfast first,” Rufus ordered.

He’d noticed it was a fine balance with Wyatt if you wanted the man to respond—nothing was a _suggestion_. It was a request or an order. Otherwise, Wyatt often dismissed it as easily as one swatted a fly.

Jiya turned a smile on him and Wyatt replied with a helpless half-smile of his own. Rufus felt a semblance of pity for the man; there wasn’t much defense against Jiya’s smile. Wyatt set the coffees down on the conference table and pulled out one of the chairs to sit across from Rufus.

“Want to hit the lights?” Jiya nodded toward the switch behind Wyatt.

The soldier did as she requested and all three flinched with the sudden illumination. Rufus blinked his vision clear, getting his first good look at the man seated across from him.

“Damn, man,” he exclaimed. “You sleeping at all these days?”

Wyatt always held a sort of shimmering tension about him—something that held his jaw tight, his eyes focused, his skin taunt and paler than it probably should be. Rufus could remember seeing the man relax only once: the night the three time travelers had drinks after they’d been stranded briefly in 1754. Outside of that, there was always a sort of sadness and sense of desperate determination that hung in the air around him.

Now, Wyatt was all those things—plus he was sporting shadowed circles beneath his eyes to go with the jawline that hadn’t seen a razor in at least two days. Rufus watched as the man rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes darting to anywhere else in the room except toward the other people sharing the space with him.

He looked…trapped.

“I have an uncle,” Jiya spoke up suddenly, her voice cutting through the tension neatly, “who served two tours in Iraq. Just after 9/11.”

Wyatt brought his head up and looked at her, his glance both calculating and raw.

“I was in high school,” Jiya shrugged, “totally absorbed in my own drama. I didn’t really pay attention to what was going on with him, or what he was dealing with over there.”

Wyatt huffed an agreeable breath, bouncing his head once. Rufus knew the other man wasn’t much older than Jiya—more than likely, Wyatt had been barely out of high school himself when the towers went down. Based on what Rufus knew of his record, Wyatt’s time in the military came later than that first wave of soldiers the year following the terrorist attack.

“He came to my parents on Thanksgiving one year,” Jiya continued. “He’d been back home for a while, I think. At least a year. Anyway, we had a guest room for him—plenty of space and privacy. But he slept on the floor of our living room.”

Wyatt was watching her now, his blue eyes pinned to her face as though it was the only thing in the world that made sense to him in that moment. Rufus found himself holding very still.

“I couldn’t figure it out. Thought he was being weird on purpose.” She lifted a shoulder, plucking one of the coffees from the drink carrier and holding it carefully by the flats of her fingers as though to give her hands something to do. “I decided to call him on it. So, one morning I got up earlier than everyone else, came out to the kitchen, started fixing coffee. Banging around, shutting cupboards really loud. Y’know. He woke up, but just laid there. Before I could say anything he…he thanked me. Said he needed the noise because the world was too quiet.” Jiya looked up, meeting Wyatt’s eyes. “And the quiet screamed at him.”

Rufus looked at Wyatt and felt something kick low in his gut at the tears he saw burning the other man’s eyes.

“He ever say why he slept on the floor?” Rufus asked, not looking away from Wyatt.

He felt Jiya’s shrug, but it was Wyatt who answered.

“’Cause his bed didn’t feel safe.”

Jiya nodded. “Pretty much.”

Her cell phone buzzed, making all three of them jump. Pulling it out of the pocket in her hoodie, Jiya frowned at the screen. “It’s Agent Christopher. I’ll be right back.”

“You want me to come with you?” Rufus offered.

Jiya smiled at him. “Nah,” she replied. “If it’s what I think it is, you’re gonna be needed soon enough.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then grabbed a bagel from the bag and shoved it into her mouth, freeing up a hand to open the door.

An awkward silence quickly settled over the room. Rufus found himself wishing for Lucy’s balancing presence. The last time he’d been alone with Wyatt, he was patching up a bullet wound in the man’s side. Not exactly a memory for the greatest hits reel.

“You like Pearl Jam?” he suddenly found himself asking.

Wyatt half-smiled. “Yeah,” he replied, fingers finding the iPod and flipping it around until the screen lit up once more. “Always wanted to play the guitar like Mike McCready.”

“Guess I didn’t peg you for a grunge fan,” Rufus confessed.

“That right?” Wyatt slouched back, taking a bagel with him. He sipped his coffee. “What _did_ you take me for?”

Rufus shrugged. “I dunno…you’re from Texas. I was figuring, y’know. George Strait. Garth Brooks. That kinda stuff.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Not everyone from Texas likes country music, man. You think everyone from Detroit likes Motown, too?”

Rufus took the hit. “All right, all right, fair enough,” he smiled, tapping the air in surrender. He grabbed his own bagel. “What else do you listen to?”

“You mean when I’m not longing for my flannel shirts?” Wyatt teased.

“Exactly,” Rufus lifted his coffee in a sarcastic salute.

Before Wyatt could answer, their phones rang, almost simultaneously. Frowning, Rufus set his coffee down and dug out his phone, connecting the call. He didn’t even get a chance to say hello before Connor Mason was ordering him to come in.

“I’m here,” Rufus stated as he heard Wyatt do the same. “Been here working with Jiya.”

 _“An alert came in,”_ Mason told him. _“Flynn’s stayed at one moment in history for more than two hours.”_

“Long enough to mess something up,” Rufus sighed, hanging up.

“Guess we’re up,” Wyatt said, standing and stretching. “I’m gonna…go wash up. Or, something.”

Rufus simply nodded, watching the man walk out of the room, leaving his iPod behind. Curious, Rufus picked up the small device, swiping it on. At the top of the screen he saw the name of the playlist.

“Home Tunes,” he read softly.

Something had triggered his teammate back in 1934 that much was becoming obvious. Something that made his bed not feel safe and had him turning to music he probably hadn’t played since his wife died. Stuffing the iPod into his back pocket, Rufus grabbed another bagel and headed toward the control room, waiting for the mission briefing.

* * *

_Present Day_

Mason Industries certainly spared no expense when it came to personal amenities. Wyatt splashed water on his newly shaved face, the cool water bracing and exactly what he needed. He grabbed the Visine from the toiletries packet on the bathroom counter and dropped some in both eyes, hoping the product lived up to its slogan.

The music had been a mistake, he realized. It had lulled him into a sense of security he should never have allowed when in an unsecure environment. He had no one to blame but himself that both Rufus _and_ Jiya had seen so much. Had realized so much.

For a moment, he stared at his own reflection, gripping the edge of the sink until his fingertips turned numb in an effort to not punch the mirror, splintering the glass and obliterating the haunted look he couldn’t seem to erase on his own. He had a mission.  A job. Getting a grip on himself wasn’t just a good idea, it was necessary.

But a mission meant seeing Lucy.

He hadn’t seen her since they returned from 1934. Since he’d played a role. A very _convincing_ role. A jetty of guilt cut through the sea of longing that seemed to fill up the place where his heart used to be. He could tell himself he had been thinking of Jess…had been in the moment after recalling the night he’d asked Jessica to marry him. He could tell himself that it was just part of the job.

He could tell himself a thousand different things.

The truth, though, had shot through his skin at the touch of her fingertips, burning his lips with her own. The truth that it had been _Lucy_ he’d been thinking of when he caught her up, kissing her almost fiercely. It had been Lucy’s warmth he hadn’t minded next to him in that narrow bed. It had been Lucy’s voice he’d listened to, telling him that everyone deserved someone to be with.

Lucy, not Jessica.

And he had no idea where to put that. Nothing fit anymore. Not his apartment with his wall covered by newspaper clippings and clues to the culprit behind Jessica’s death. Not the bed he’d once shared with his wife. Not the couch he’d slept on for months after she’d died.

He hadn’t been able to _breathe_ in that space. The space that was once theirs. Was once his.

“Get you shit together, Logan,” he growled at himself. “You are a goddamn U.S. Delta Force soldier. Act like it.”

Pulling in a slow, deep breath through his nose, he straightened until he felt his spine pop, tucked his shirt in, dried his face on a paper towel, and exited the bathroom. The group was assembling around Jiya’s desk. Agent Christopher and Connor Mason as well as several of the usual technicians were present. Rufus was slouched against the desk next to Jiya, fists buried in his hoodie, a scowl finding a home on his face.

This had Wyatt frowning; Rufus was the kind of guy who should be happy. He wasn’t the kind of guy who should have a reason to scowl like that. Except for the fact that a lunatic was running around in time, turning history inside out, erasing sisters and creating fiancés where none existed.

And…threating the very existence of America.

“Where’s Lucy?” he found himself saying before he thought better of it.

“On her way,” Jiya reported.

“We know where Flynn landed?” Wyatt asked, positioning himself across from Rufus.

“France,” Agent Denise Christopher replied. “1918.”

“Any idea why?” Rufus asked, looking over at Jiya’s computer.

“1918,” Wyatt repeated, a cold dread settling in his gut. “That’s—“

“World War I,” Lucy’s voice interjected as she climbed the metal stairs leading up to the computer banks and Jiya’s desk. She removed her jacket, draping it over one arm.

She was wearing sweat pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her dark hair twisted up in a messy knot that still somehow managed to look amazing. Her face was puffy from sleep—it was barely seven in the morning, after all—but she still seemed focused and ready.

 _She’d make one hell of a soldier_ , Wyatt mused. He met her eyes briefly and was oddly relieved when her glance skittered away before his.

“Oh, swell,” Rufus bemoaned. “The guy pinballs around in time for almost a week and when he finally lands somewhere, it’s in the middle of a war. That sounds like our luck.”

“When in 1918?” Lucy asked, moving to stand next to Wyatt and peer over Jiya’s shoulder.

“June 9,” Jiya replied. “Looks like he’s somewhere here,” she pointed at a set of coordinates on a grid that made sense to Wyatt, but probably looked like a Battleship game board to Lucy and Rufus. “Around the Marne River.”

“Oh, shit,” Lucy breathed, moving over to one of the spare computers.

“What?” Rufus asked, his tone anxious. Wyatt silently echoed his teammate’s obvious worry.

Lucy ignored him for a moment, fingers flying over the keyboard, eyes darting across the screen. Suddenly, she straightened and her eyes found Wyatt’s. The look there set every nerve ending in his body on fire.

“Belleau Wood,” she said. He felt himself flinch.

“What’s Belleau Wood?” Connor Mason asked, clearly unsure why the tension in the room had suddenly spiked several notches.

Lucy took a breath, then broadened her gaze to take in the rest of the room. It was what Wyatt had started to think of as her professor stance: her way of subtly shifting the attention of the room to her words and away from any one person. She quickly captivated each person within earshot with just a slight change in her tone.

“The Battle of Belleau Wood lasted nearly the entire month of June in 1918. It was one of the…,” she swallowed, shaking her head slightly, “one of the bloodiest battles the U.S. forces fought in World War I. Said to be the biggest offensive at that time—since Appomattox.”

“What would Flynn want in the middle of that mess?” Agent Christopher pondered aloud.

“Has to have something to do with that key he got from Bonnie,” Wyatt replied, keeping his eyes on Lucy, watching as she put mental puzzle pieces in place.

“What did it say again?” Jiya asked.

“ _The key to medieval time and the key to the end of time_ ,” Lucy recited. “I think you’re right…he’s looking for whatever it opens.”

“But Clyde stole it from Henry Ford in the ‘30’s,” Rufus muttered. “What’s going back to 1918 going to do?”

“Maybe he’s looking for the origin? Or the previous owner? Or—“

“There could be a million different possibilities.” Wyatt cut Lucy’s supposition off. “We’re not going to figure any of it out standing around here guessing.”

“World War I is going to be tricky,” Agent Christopher murmured.

“You don’t say?” Lucy commented, heavy on the sarcasm, one eyebrow arching high as her eyes roamed the floor as though looking at a macabre map of the past. “I mean, we’re talking primitive warfare—almost worse than any previous era we’ve visited because people were just starting to figure out the science behind deadly weapons. Trenches and barbed wire…mustard gas and bayonets…sepsis and dysentery—“

“Easy, Lucy,” Wyatt soothed as her voice began to increase in both speed and volume, “you’re scaring the kids.”

Lucy shot a look over at him, her eyes large with naked fear for a moment before she drew in a breath, visibly settling herself as she watched him breathe, and swallowed down the obvious panic that had been about to overwhelm her. Wyatt felt a swell of pride flare up in his chest and he gave her a small, encouraging smile.

Agent Christopher watched their exchange, then cleared her throat. “I meant, for your roles.” Her eyes darting between Rufus and Lucy. “Clearly, Wyatt will go as a U.S. soldier, but you two….”

“Nurse,” Lucy pointed to herself, “and stretcher bearer,” she pointed to Rufus. “Keeps us together, at least. Maybe even in one piece.”

Wyatt tried to ignore Rufus’ slight whimper of fear.

Agent Christopher nodded. “Let’s get you suited up.”

The trio headed to wardrobe as Agent Christopher called out to several of the techs to help them select the appropriate pieces of clothing. Wyatt hung back from Rufus, Lucy slowing her stride to join him. His heart beat ridiculously fast; he was almost mad at himself for being nervous. After all, this was _Lucy_. The same person who’d pulled his ass out of the Alamo and climbed through a window to rescue him in 1972.

None of that changed because of one kiss.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

She nodded. “You?”

“Fine,” he lied smoothly. “Just making sure you were still okay, y’know, after….”

To his surprise, Rufus abruptly stopped and turned on his heel, facing them. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Lucy asked, brown eyes blinking owlishly back at him.

“I _knew_ something happened back there in that cabin with Bonnie and Clyde,” Rufus accused, pointed at them.

Wyatt scoffed, moving forward and brushing Rufus’s accusing finger to the side. “Nothing happened with Bonnie and Clyde,” he grumbled. “You make it sound like….”

“Like what?” Rufus practically trotted around him to stop him once more. “Like something _happened_!”

“Rufus, look,” Lucy started, a hand up in what appeared to be surrender.

“It was _nothing_ ,” Wyatt snapped, shooting a glance back over his shoulder at Lucy and watching with a stab of regret as her mouth shut with a click of surprise. “We were playing a role, like we’ve had to do every time we go out in that damn metal eyeball. That’s it.”

Rufus looked at Lucy. “That’s it?”

Lucy dropped her hand, shoulders straightening. “That’s it,” she acquiesced.

Hoping the matter was closed, Wyatt continued toward wardrobe, but couldn’t help overhear Rufus whisper to Lucy, “Tell me later?”

Shaking his head slightly, Wyatt searched through the racks of clothes Mason had amassed for this project and found the year, and the uniform, then took the clothes back to the changing area. There was something to appreciate about modern clothing—it was softer, for one. Lighter. Easier to move. In Syria, he’d carried a pack that weighed nearly eighty pounds on top of his protective gear and aside from his weapon, and even that was easier to maneuver in than the uniform of a U.S. solider from 1918.

He joined the other two, noting with some consternation that the red crosses both wore—Rufus’ on his helmet, Lucy’s on her apron—stood out like targets. Sweat began to gather along his spine at the thought of being separated from them, not being able to stand in between the enemy and his team.

“Okay, listen,” Lucy said as they stood in a bit of a circle, blocking everyone else out for a moment, as seemed to be their tradition, “the Germans were pushed back several times during this battle, but the allies don’t actually win the battle for several weeks. On June 9th the Americans and French barraged the woods, basically devastating it. We have to land away from the Front and outside of the fighting if we don’t want to be immediately blown up.”

“Big fan of not being blown up,” Rufus nodded.

“Any ideas on where to look for Flynn?” Wyatt asked, checking his modern weapon and stuffing it into a hidden pocket in his jacket before picking up the Browning M1918 BAR that Mason had somehow found for him to carry and slinging the strap over his shoulder.

“Not a clue,” Lucy sighed helplessly. “If he’s looking for something that fits that key, I can only think he’d be in some sort of headquarters or home…something that had a lock, like a box, or a trunk, or a diary.”

“Or a clock,” Wyatt said, distractedly.

“What?” Lucy looked at him sharply.

Wyatt glanced between her and Rufus. “Well, the quote’s all about time, right?” he shrugged. “Maybe the key is to a clock.”

Lucy was staring at him with wide eyes. “You’re a genius.”

Wyatt couldn’t help his reflexive smile.

“Okay, people!” Agent Christopher shouted from behind the control bank of computers. “We don’t have all day.”

The trio didn’t move.

“Kind of an ironic thing to say for someone who is leading a team of time travelers,” Lucy commented dryly.

“Seems awful eager for us to drop into pretty much the scariest environment imaginable,” Rufus agreed.

Wyatt felt a calm settle over him in the wake of their anxiety. This is what he did, what he was built for: to head into battle, outcome unknown, covering the backs of his brothers, and bringing them back home. He was the protector. It was really the only job he’d ever known.

 He grinned, clapping Rufus on the shoulder as he moved forward. “C’mon, you sons of bitches, you want to live forever?”

“Oh, _now_ he remembers his history,” Lucy muttered, but followed.

Once inside the lifeboat, Rufus plugged in coordinates that Jiya assured him would land them in what should be a grain field inside the Allied-held area of the woods, north of the Paris-Metz Highway. They’d have to walk a bit to get to any sort of headquarters or building, but they’d also keep the lifeboat away from the heaviest fighting during that time.

“Remember,” Lucy said, her voice holding a tremble of trepidation as Wyatt helped her with her harness, “you’re part of the 23rd Infantry Regiment. If we run into anyone, I mean. And we, uh…we say we just got split off during—“

“Lucy,” Wyatt said softly, drawing her eyes. “We’ve got this.”

Lucy nodded nervously. “I called you,” she said suddenly, the words seeming to fall from her lips like scattered letters on a Scrabble board, surprising them both. “Twice.”

“I-I didn’t….”

“I hung up,” she swallowed, then laughed at herself. “Like I was back in high school. I wanted to talk to you but I had no idea what to say.”

Wyatt smiled at her. “I know what you mean.”

“Oh, this is going to be a conversation, right here,” Rufus declared from his pilot’s seat, nodding vigorously as he flipped the switches starting the engine and time components. “You two are doing a helluva lot of talking when we get back.”

Lucy chuckled, her eyes dancing slightly as they met Wyatt’s gaze. “When we get back,” she agreed.

Wyatt nodded, and then the world turned inside out.

* * *

 _Marne River_  
Belleau Woods, France  
June, 1918

Lucy hated the jolt most of all. The way her body instinctively fell one way while the lifeboat shifted the other. It felt like time was wringing all sense of balance and order from her in retaliation for defying it. After so many of these trips, she thought she was starting to get a grip on the nausea, but she could see her teammates hadn’t quite mastered it.

Rufus looked positively green as he breathed slowly through his nose, flipping switches to power down the machine.

“June 9, 1918,” he confirmed. “Flux capacitor…fluxing.”

“Never gets old,” Wyatt grinned crookedly, bouncing a fist off the one Rufus held out toward him without looking.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “So glad you’re taking this seriously.”

Rufus twisted around in his seat, eyes darting between the two of them. “Right. You’re right, sorry.” He paused. “Anyone else as terrified as I am to open that door?”

Both Lucy and Wyatt raised their hands. Then Wyatt reached for his BAR.

“Look,” he said, his tone shifting into what she privately referred to as his Master Sergeant Voice. “If you can get your hands on a weapon, take it. This is a war. It’s going to be bloody and brutal and people are supposed to die.”

Lucy swallowed, nodding shakily, knowing that last was meant for her.

“But not us.” Wyatt tipped his chin down, pinning his blue eyes on them. “ _We_ are not supposed to die here. So, we won’t. Got it?”

“Got it,” Lucy and Rufus replied in unison.

“Okay, Lucy? Where do we go?” Wyatt focused on her and she caught her breath.

There was something almost electric that happened in her body when he looked at her with such intensity. She saw trust there, complete trust. And it both exhilarated and terrified her.

“There was often a field hospital about a half mile behind the worst of the fighting,” she replied, thinking swiftly, “that would be our best bet to start. And, any houses we see along the way…if there are any left.”

“Got it,” Wyatt nodded, looking over both of them both. “Everybody ready?”

Lucy nodded, waiting for him to maneuver in the tight space over to the door and hit the switch. The door shifted open and she peered out into a French grain field, the daylight gray, as though the light was being filtered through a sieve. Wyatt jumped down, cradling his weapon and glancing around quickly to gauge the safety of their surroundings before turning and offering her a hand.

Exiting the lifeboat, Lucy took a look around. They had, indeed, landed in a field, just on the edge of a smaller copse of trees and at least fifty yards away from what appeared to be a road created by wheel-ruts and damaged trees. Off to the north she saw a large, sweeping sea of green: Belleau Woods. At the edge of the wood, she could see tops of barbed wire braces, like X’s dotting the countryside.

The silence surprised her. On this day, in this place, she expected a cacophony of noise. But it was completely, utterly silent. Not even a bird called in the trees lining the field.

“All quiet on the Western Front,” Rufus whispered as he shut the door of the lifeboat.

It should have been peaceful—the French countryside, a soft summer day, light just bright enough to squint but not so hot as to make their uniforms immediately uncomfortable—but instead it felt almost eerie. Based on the way he held his weapon with the butt tucked into the crook of his elbow and a hand bracing the barrel, Lucy could tell Wyatt felt it, too.

“Thought you said the allies bombed this—“

Before Rufus could finish his sentence, the _boom_ of a tank gun splintered the air, sending dirt, and trees skyward and causing the three of them to instinctively duck, even though it was well in the distance. It was as if the world had simply been holding its breath for their arrival before exploding into chaos.

“Holy shit,” Rufus breathed.

They stared in shock as the fighting escalated, quickly turning the tinny light of day dark with the dirt and dust of battle. She’d never seen anything like it—reading about the mayhem of the war one was thing. Standing at the edge of it, something else.

“More Indirect coming in,” Wyatt muttered, his eyes pinned to the horizon.

“What?” Rufus shot a look at Wyatt, clearly confused.

“Mortars, bombs, shelling…,” Wyatt darted a look over his shoulder at the other man. “Stuff that can get us killed even way the hell over here.”

Just then, Lucy heard a shrill whistle overhead and felt Wyatt grab her arm in a tight grip.

“ _Move_!” he bellowed, propelling her forward, his command compelling Rufus to follow. “ _Get to the trees, now_!”

They ran headlong toward the copse of trees on the other side of the field just as the bomb landed—much too close for comfort. Wyatt didn’t release her arm and Lucy found herself pushed to the edge of her endurance to keep up with him. Minutes after they heard the first whistle of the bomb, the earth shook around them, sending them stumbling forward.

Distantly, they heard the _pop-pop-pop_ of rifles and the screams of men. More explosions rocked the ground—each proceeded by the heavy _boom_ of a tank gun. Trees at the far edge of the horizon splintered and shattered, turning the ground to ash. As Wyatt dragged Lucy behind one of the trees at the edge of the field, Rufus skidding to a stop next to her, she marveled at how much destruction she could see even from this distance.

The armies of men looked like action figures, the destruction—though felt and heard—seemed like something captured on TV. Not _real_. Not happening literally before her eyes. The trio gasped for breath, staring across Belleau Woods as the German, French, and American armies did their best to obliterate each other.

Wyatt brought his BAR up, wrapping the strap of the big rifle around his forearm to keep it out of the way, and bracing the barrel in his grip. His eyes were on the horizon, his entire body tense. Lucy reached out a hand to grip Rufus’ jacket, needing to keep him close inside this nightmare.

“We have to keep moving,” Rufus urged. “We have to find Flynn.”

Lucy nodded and started to move forward, along the tree line. Wyatt, however, didn’t budge.

“Wyatt,” she called touching his shoulder.

He shot a glance over at her and she nearly winced at the look in his eyes. It wasn’t clear if he was seeing her at all.

“Wyatt, we have to go,” she tugged at his sleeve.

He nodded once, an abbreviated motion that was more a reflexive jerk of his head than agreement. Keeping the rifle at the ready, he backed away from the tree and then turned to lead them forward. As Lucy followed closely in his footsteps, she watched the tense set of his shoulders, the way his glance swept the land around them, watching the shadows, bringing the gun up as the bombs dropped in the distance.

She exchanged an anxious look with Rufus, nearly walking straight into Wyatt’s back when the man stopped abruptly.

Before she could ask what was wrong, she heard the unmistakable sound of vehicles approaching along a make-shift road.  

“Shit…tanks,” Wyatt muttered, flatting his arm across her chest to tuck her back behind him.

Lucy shot a worried look toward Rufus, who gulped at the word. Lucy peered around Wyatt’s shoulder at the road and saw a jeep filled with men wearing dark uniforms followed by two tanks and another jeep. On the side of the vehicles she could see the black cross outlined by white.

“Germans,” she whispered, tugging Wyatt back. “We gotta go.”

“Easy,” Wyatt advised. “Don’t want them seeing movement in the trees.”

Before they broke from their cover, the second of the two tanks stopped, rotating its turret gun, and fired off a blast toward the closest edge of Belleau Woods, the resounding shockwave sending all three travelers to the ground, hands over their ears. Lucy couldn’t see what the result of the blast had been; she kept her face down, envisioning a force field over the three of them, keeping the separate from the destruction.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Wyatt was saying well before she was ready to break their cover.

She let him tug her to her feet and glanced back once for Rufus before they were running again. They moved, low and fast, Wyatt keeping the lead. Lucy tried to remember the maps, the coordinates, tried to think about where to guide them when suddenly Wyatt halted, pulling the other two up short. In the distance, they could see what she thought was another tank at the edge of the smaller wooded area, tucked well back from the road.

“Wait…is that…?” Rufus muttered, moving forward.

Lucy gasped. It wasn’t a tank, it was the other ship—Flynn’s mothership. Camouflaged by some kind of netting, it blended into the edge of the trees. Lucy scanned the visible area but couldn’t see any other people. If Flynn had left guards by the ship, they were well hidden.

“He has to be nearby,” she reasoned. “There’s no way he could change the outcome of this battle at this point…. I mean, right?”

“But…nearby, where?” Rufus looked around. “Unless he’s back there blowing people up, we don’t have a lot of options here.”

Wyatt turned to Lucy. “What villages are nearby?”

Blinking at him she put her hands on her hips. “I’m a historian, not Google maps!”

Rufus and Wyatt exchanged a glance. “Fair point,” Rufus conceded.

“Wait, okay,” Lucy held up a hand, her brain practically buzzing as she mentally scanned the many history books she’d read about World War I. “We must be near Château-Thierry,” she said, peering around the wall Wyatt made with his body, as though he alone would protect them from the German artillery. “If I had to guess, it would be…that way.”

She pointed the opposite direction from where the tanks were heading.

“Well, it’s away from all the exploding and screaming, so I vote yes,” Rufus tugged anxiously at the edge of his uniform.

Wyatt bent close to Lucy, his eyes dancing slightly. “You’re a helluva lot better than Google maps.”

Skirting the hiding spot of the mother ship, the trio made their way to the rutted road, Wyatt pushing Rufus and Lucy ahead of him as he scanned the tree line and field for weapons of any sort. After only a few minutes of rapid walking, Lucy spotted the burned-out steeple of a church and several smaller stone buildings.

“There!” she gasped, pointing.

“Careful,” Wyatt cautioned. “Do we know who holds the town?”

“It will be the Allies, next month,” Lucy confirmed. “Right now, it’s—“

The ping of a bullet hitting the barrel of Wyatt’s BAR caused her to yelp, Rufus grabbing her close and pulling her away as Wyatt jerked to the side and crouched in what appeared to be an instinctive move. He brought the BAR up and fired back in the direction of the shot. Huddled next to Rufus, near the tree line, Lucy looked anxiously toward the town and saw someone fall from the crumbling window of what was left of the church bell tower.

“You got him!” she gasped in amazement.

“Yeah, let’s just hope he liked sauerkraut and not hot dogs,” Wyatt muttered. “C’mon.”

They followed behind him in a single file line, edging up to the wall of the city. Lucy pressed close, able to smell the moss and dirt stuck between the stones, for just a moment breathing in something that didn’t seem like it was balanced on the edge of death. She looked up as Wyatt shifted in front of her, his eyes tracking her position before he glanced back at Rufus, then nodded once.

And then he was moving away and she had no choice but to follow.

They scrambled around the rubble of a building, crouching down behind an overturned truck to catch their breath and get their bearings. Lucy kept herself close to Wyatt, as if his mere proximity could keep them all alive. She snuck out a trembling hand and latched onto his sleeve, noting how he seemed to lean into the curve of her fingers though his eyes never ceased their scan of the debris-filled road.

“Medic!”

The weak plea came from their collective left, near the shattered entrance to the church. Wyatt flinched beneath her grip and Rufus flattened himself against the undercarriage of the truck.

“Please….”

Lucy looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. A pale hand grabbed at the top of a stone several feet away.

“He’s American,” Wyatt whispered tensely.

“How do you know?” Rufus shot back.

Wyatt gave him a look. “Besides the fact that he’s speaking English? This.” He lifted his arm and showed them the bars on the edge of his uniform; they matched what they could see of the arm across the way. “He had to have seen your crosses.”

Lucy bit her lip bracing herself against the undercarriage of the truck when Wyatt shifted away.

“We have to help him,” Wyatt said, something tight and thin in his voice. It reminded her of the Alamo, the breathless loss she’d heard then when he spoke about the men he’d been forced to leave behind.

“You watch that tower,” she said to him, then looked up at Rufus. “C’mon.”

“What—but, I don’t—“

Before Rufus could finish his protest, she was moving and to her immense relief, both men followed. Wyatt had the BAR up, eyes on the street, the church tower, every doorway in their immediate surroundings. Rufus reached the man before she did and the look of trepidation on his face cranked her heartbeat up another few notches. She climbed over the rubble and dropped down beside the wounded soldier.

“Is he…,” Wyatt’s voice broke off, and she heard stones rattle as he backed toward them, his rifle never lowering. “Was it me?”

It only occurred to her in that moment that Wyatt might have been the cause of this man’s wound. With a shaking hand, breathing as slowly and evenly as she could to stave off the black gathering at the edges of her vision, Lucy turned the soldier over, looking for a bullet wound. She caught sight of the soldier’s face first and felt her gut kick at the youth she saw there; he was barely twenty.

Blood had hardened the folds of his uniform, drying on material as the young man had lain in the protection of stone for some time. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth and looking around, Lucy saw the body of another soldier—this one clothed in the darker gray of the German uniform—lying face-down a few feet from them.

“Lucy?” Wyatt called again, his face turned away from them.

“No!” She replied quickly. “No, you didn’t do this.”

“Ma’am?” the soldier whispered, blinking large brown eyes up at her in confusion.

“Hi,” Lucy’s smile trembled. “You’re going to be okay. We’re…, uh,” she looked up and around, completely unsure about where to take him that would be safe. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

Wyatt climbed over the make-shift barricade, propping the rifle against the stones. His hands moving quickly, he opened the soldier’s jacket and Lucy watched as his face tightened in a grimace that she knew could only mean one thing. The moment Wyatt registered the young soldier’s eyes were on him, though, the emotion vanished and something else appeared. Something solid and reassuring.

“What’s your name, Corporal?” Wyatt asked.

“D’Antonio, Sir,” the young man replied.

“Where you from, D’Antonio?” Wyatt asked, pulling the soldier’s undershirt up and peering at his belly, then glancing quickly at Lucy and pinning his eyes to her apron. It took her a moment to realize he wanted to use it as a bandage.

“Queens, Sir,” D’Antonio gasped, paling further as Wyatt pressed Lucy’s folded-up apron against his wound.

“Yeah? I’m from Texas,” Wyatt said, wrapping the stings of the apron around D’Antonio’s middle and tying them tightly overtop of the dressing. “We got a saying there when things are tough, but we have to push through. We call it ‘cowboy up.’”

Wyatt handed the BAR to Rufus, met Lucy’s eyes, then nodded toward the damaged church.

“W-we got a sayin’ like that back in Queens, too, Sir,” D’Antonio stated.

“Yeah?” Wyatt grinned. “What is it?”

D’Antonio’s eyes flicked quickly to Lucy, then back to Wyatt. “Prolly shouldn’t say.”

Lucy smiled, watching as Wyatt closed the young Corporal’s jacket over the field-dressed wound. His hand was shaking. On instinct, she reached out and grasped it, ignoring the blood staining his fingers, and squeezed. He looked at her quickly and the _knowing_ that he held in his eyes turned her heart inside out.

“Fair enough,” Wyatt said, glancing at Lucy before looking back down at D’Antonio. “My friend here’s gonna cover us while we head into the church.” He looked over his shoulder at Rufus who, to Lucy’s relieved surprise, nodded once, holding the BAR like he’d been born with the thing in his hand. “You ready to cowboy up, D’Antonio?”

The young soldier swallowed tightly, then nodded. “Y-yessir.”

Wyatt eased D’Antonio to a seated position, then tucked his shoulder against the young man’s chest, hefting him across his shoulders as he stood in a crouch. Rufus was up, rifle in hand and Lucy clambered to her feet following Wyatt as they headed to the broken stairway the led to the gaping hole of the church entrance.

Later, Lucy would realize that if she’d led the way into the church instead of Wyatt, she would have died the moment she crossed the threshold. As it was, the only thing to save Wyatt’s life was the body of a kid from Queens, New York. Gunfire erupted the moment he entered with his wounded cargo over his shoulders echoing in the cavernous chamber of stone; Lucy and Rufus hit the ground, Rufus bringing the rifle up to fire back only once the shooting had stopped.

“Wyatt!” Lucy screamed over the echo of bullets.

Rufus stopped firing to avoid hitting Lucy as she crawled forward into the church, scrambling toward her teammate. Wyatt was huddled against the inside wall of the church, D’Antonio’s body sprawled across his legs, a hand gripping the young man’s throat where blood pumped at an alarming rate over his fingers, spilling across the floor.

Lucy could tell D’Antonio was dead before she dropped down next to Wyatt, but the soldier didn’t appear to see it. He was pressing his fingers against the young man’s carotid artery, curling the limp body toward him, muttering, “C’mon, kid, don’t do this…no, now, c’mon…cowboy up, you hear me?”

“Wyatt!” Lucy whispered fiercely, shaking him. “He’s gone. It’s over. Wyatt!”

She took his face in her hands, turning him toward her; the wounded look in his eyes nearly broke her heart.

“He’s gone.”

Wyatt stared at her, his hand slipping from the young man’s bloody neck. She could feel him trembling, his eyes tragic with damage much greater than the body he held in his arms. Something tore inside her—a feeling of loss and longing that was both welcome and foreign.

“Guys,” Rufus whispered, his body warm at her back. “We’ve…got company.”

Lucy released Wyatt’s face and looked over her shoulder at the front of the church. She’d been so intent on bringing Wyatt back from wherever he’d been mentally heading, she’d forgotten to look for the danger that sent him there in the first place. Expecting to see a force of German soldiers, she blinked in surprise at the sight of Garcia Flynn flanked by three men, none of whom were his pilot, Anthony.

The anger that quickly replaced the surprise was nothing compared to the simmering rage that seemed to shake the air around Wyatt as he released the poor Corporal from Queens and surged to his feet.

“You son of a bitch!” Wyatt growled, drawing his Army-issue .45 from the pocket of his uniform in one swift motion as he stepped forward.

“Hold it!” Flynn bellowed, raising a hand to stop the men at his sides from firing. It was only then that Lucy realized Rufus had raised the BAR and was standing just behind and to the right of Wyatt, facing off with Flynn. “Don’t shoot him. Yet.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Wyatt snarled, not slowing his advance, his arm steady, aim true.

“What’s stopping you, Sergeant?” Flynn asked, moving forward, careful to stay out of the line of fire of the men with him, his own weapon trained on Wyatt’s chest.

Wyatt didn’t reply; Lucy stood, skirting the edge of the destroyed sanctuary, eyes darting between her team and Flynn’s men. She could see bodies in German uniforms scattered at the edges of the room, some sprawled across the stone as if flung there by a disinterested giant, others crumbled as though flattened by a massive hand. Her breath stuttered in her lungs as she searched for a way out of this—for all of them.

“He was already dead,” Flynn shrugged, nodding toward D’Antonio’s body at the entrance of the church. “Surely you aren’t blaming me for simply speeding it along.”

“Shut _up_!”

Wyatt shifted his grip on his .45. He was now inches from the other man, the barrel brushing the lapels of Flynn’s uniform. Lucy could practically hear him sizing up his options. It took her a moment to realize that the only reason he didn’t shoot other man was that the three people Flynn had brought with him were now positioned strategically at the edges of the church so that their weapons were trained on Lucy and Rufus.

“Let them go,” Wyatt growled, his voice so brittle it practically broke against the air the minute it spilled from his lips.

Flynn causally grimaced. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said shaking his head. “You see, I came here for a reason. And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” He half-sang his last sentence and Lucy caught sight of Rufus rolling his eyes and giving his head a shake in her periphery.

She felt too removed from the other two; she started to move forward and gasped when an arm slipped around her shoulders, the point of a blade resting just beneath the curve of her jaw. Wyatt heard her sharp intake of breath and tore his eyes from Flynn for a moment to meet hers.

“What are you doing?” Wyatt demanded.

“I have need of a historian,” Flynn shrugged. “Lucy can help me.”

“You’re crazy,” Lucy scoffed, dismayed that her voice shook. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I thought you might say that,” Flynn replied, and Lucy swore his eyes glinted in the fading daylight that filtered through the broken windows of the sanctuary. He nodded once and Lucy saw Wyatt tense, his body shifting toward her when suddenly Rufus cried out in surprise and pain.

Her eyes shot over to the pilot as the BAR he’d been holding clattered to the stone floor. He grappled with a man twice his size, with far superior training in hand-to-hand combat. The other man shoved Rufus against a stone wall, slapping him, then holding him still with the flat of his forearm.

Wyatt turned to help Rufus, but jerked to a stop when Lucy yelped. The man holding her tightened his grip, pulling her arms roughly behind her, his companion stepping up with a length of rope to wind around her wrists.

“Wyatt!”

“Let them go!” Wyatt yelled, clearly torn about which direction to turn.

Flynn raised his pistol to Wyatt’s forehead, his eyes deadly calm.

“You shoot him and I will _never_ help you!” Lucy shouted, fear like an icy river down her spine. “You may as well kill me, too!”

Flynn huffed an amused breath, lowering his weapon and shaking his head. Momentarily confused, Wyatt began to lower his, too, his shoulders shifting instinctively toward where the men held Lucy captive.

“I thought you might say that, too,” Flynn intoned and before any of them could react, he brought his left hand up with a powerful swing, catching Wyatt at the temple and sending the other man staggering.

Lucy saw the glint of something metallic in Flynn’s hand: brass knuckles.

“No! Wyatt!” Lucy shouted, looking frantically across the room where Rufus was struggling against his own captor.

The hit caused Wyatt to drop his weapon, but he brought his head up and charged Flynn like a linebacker, a roar of rage echoing against the stones. Flynn was bigger than Wyatt—heavier, taller, more muscular—but Wyatt was trained. His attack was vicious and meant to maim. Lucy was certain had the soldier been at his best, Flynn would not have been able to beat him.

As it was, Flynn fought dirty. Lucy struggled against the hold of her captor as she watched Flynn slam Wyatt against fallen church pews, the reverberating crack enough to steal her breath. She silently cheered as Wyatt used a piece of stone to break Flynn’s nose, but whimpered as Flynn slammed Wyatt across the face with a loose board. She held her breath as Wyatt struggled back to his feet, his face and mouth bleeding, his stance wavering, but his punches still strong, solid.

He managed to unbalance Flynn and get him to the ground, his hold on the man’s neck brutal. Lucy felt the two men guarding her shift forward and she stomped, hard, on the toe of the man behind her, shoving her shoulder into the other one. One of her guards brought his gun up, the barrel trained on Wyatt.

“No!” Flynn choked out through Wyatt’s tenacious grip. “No. He’s mine!”

Lucy gasped as Flynn punched Wyatt in the side, the smaller man folding helplessly as his air escaped. Flynn hit him again, and again, until Wyatt’s responding punch merely glanced off Flynn’s shoulder. As the Master Sergeant fell to his knees, Flynn slid the brass knuckles from his left hand to his right and crashed his fist against Wyatt’s cheek, crumbling the soldier like a house of cards.

“Wyatt!” Lucy gasped, tasting tears at the corner of her mouth. “No!”

Flynn continued to kick the fallen soldier, oblivious of Lucy’s protests and the complete lack of retaliation from Wyatt.

“You’re…gonna kill ‘im!” Rufus managed past the arm at his throat.

“Stop!” Lucy screamed. “I’ll come with you!”

Flynn paused with his leg reared back for another kick to Wyatt’s motionless body. He was gasping, his face bleeding from multiple places, his uniform splattered with dirt, dust, and blood. He looked up at Lucy.

“Willingly?”

Lucy sucked in a trembling breath. “Yes. Just…don’t hurt him anymore.”

“Lucy…no!” Rufus fought against the man holding him against the wall, managing to drive a knee into the man’s groin. He vaulted over a fallen pew and shoved the rifle being lowered to sight on him to the side, reaching for Lucy at the same time.

Lucy cried out a warning, but the third man recovered and cracked the butt of his rifle against Rufus’ sternum, knocking him to the floor.

“Stop!” Flynn bellowed. “Enough of this. Take her,” he waved at the men holding Lucy before dragging the back of his hand across his blood-smeared face, “before the rest of the German army gets here.”

“You’re a bastard, Flynn,” Lucy spat.

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about,” Flynn muttered, wiping blood from his eyes. “You told me not to shoot him, so I didn’t.”

The men dragged Lucy forward; she tried to dig her heels in, tried to halt her movement, looking frantically back at Rufus, then over at the unmoving form that was Wyatt.

“Wait! Wait—I need to know if they’re okay!”

“Shut her up!” Flynn ordered.

Lucy felt a hand clapped over her mouth, making it nearly impossible to breathe, fight, and move all at once. Before she was ready, she was hauled from the crumbling church, into the smoky afternoon of Château-Thierry.

Away from her team. Away from the lifeboat. Away from everything safe.

**

 _Continued in Part 2_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

_Château-Thierry, France  
June 1918_

Rufus coughed air back into his lungs. His chest ached where Flynn’s douche-bag henchman had slammed his rifle into it, shoving the air from his body. His ears were ringing with the sound of Lucy’s frantic cries, calling for Wyatt, calling for Flynn to wait, cursing the man holding her much too tight.

The moment he could draw a full breath, Rufus pushed himself up to his elbows, realizing that the ringing in his ears had also faded enough to hear more voices—and these weren’t speaking English.

_Germans_.

They were headed back through the town. Lying back down in the protection of the broken church pews, he prayed—literally—that Wyatt wouldn’t wake until the coast was clear.

The voices grew closer; Rufus couldn’t understand a word that was spoken. He held his breath, eyes closed as he heard two enter the church. He could hear their boots crunching the scattered stone, then a comment or two before turning and leaving the same way they came in. He exhaled, opening his eyes a crack.

The church appeared empty, for the moment, but he couldn’t be sure their luck would hold. Moving carefully in case there was a guard posted outside, he rolled to his knees and crawled toward Wyatt. Easing his teammate onto his back, Rufus winced. Wyatt’s face was a bloody mess: there were crescent-shaped cuts above and below his left eye—no doubt from the brass knuckles Flynn had used—the skin around it swelling and bruised. His lip was split in two places, and there was a cut along his hairline that was turning his light brown hair black with blood.

Rufus knew his friend had to have a few broken ribs from the vicious kicks Flynn visited upon him; he only hoped there wasn’t any internal bleeding.

“Wyatt,” he whispered, patting the man’s face gently. “C’mon, man, wake up, okay?”

Wyatt groaned softly, shifting away from Rufus’ hand. Rufus patted him again, trying to avoid the obvious wounds.

“Hey,” he implored. “Wyatt, we gotta get out of here.” He frowned, chewing on his bottom lip in thought as he looked around. They didn’t have a lot of time. He reached across Wyatt, grabbing his arm and rolling the man toward him. “C’mon,” he grunted, taking Wyatt’s weight as he shifted to a crouch, “on your feet, soldier!”

As though sensing the change in elevation, Wyatt pushed weakly against Rufus’ sore chest, coming around enough to attempt getting his feet under him.

“What…?” Wyatt mumbled, his fingers digging into Rufus’ shoulder as the other man pulled them both upright.

“We gotta go…,” Rufus repeated. “They’ll be back.”

“The hajis?” Wyatt asked, rolling his head toward Rufus.

Now that they were both standing, Wyatt leaning heavily against him, Rufus was able to look back at his friend. He winced when he saw the burst blood vessels in Wyatt’s left eye, the blue iris practically neon in the dying light of day.

“What? No, the Germans.” Rufus wrapped his other arm around Wyatt so that he was virtually hugging the man when he felt Wyatt’s knees buckle. “Hey, hey, listen, I know you’re hurting, man, but we got to _go_.”

“You okay?” Wyatt asked, trying to push away from Rufus and find his balance.

“I am, you’re not,” Rufus recapped, “and the bastards took Lucy with them.”

Wyatt blinked, his brows folding across the bridge of his nose. “You mean Rhoades? Didn’t we send her back after that IED hit?”

“Hey!” Rufus pulled back from Wyatt, gripping his shoulders and squaring off from him. He wanted to shake the man, but felt that would be a very bad idea, given the way Wyatt’s eyes weren’t even close to focusing. “Where are you right now?”

Wyatt stared in his direction, blinking slowly. “I’m, uh….” He looked around, confusion clear in his wounded eyes. “They…they took Lucy…?”

“Do you know who I am?” Rufus held his breath.

“R-Rufus…Rufus Carlin. Pilot.”

He felt himself break a sweat from relief. “Right. And you?”

“Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan,” Wyatt closed his eyes, stepping back and swaying. Rufus didn’t release him.

“And what year is this?”

Wyatt swallowed, opening his eyes and looking dazedly back at him. “I have no idea.”

Rufus had to give him that one. “Fair enough. Can you walk?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt nodded, taking a step forward and going to one knee.

Rufus grabbed him, pulling him up once more. They both froze when voices drew close. Looking around frantically, Rufus saw a stone altar several feet away. He tugged at Wyatt.

“C’mon, this way.”

They stumbled, Rufus holding more of Wyatt’s weight than he was ready to bear, and ducked behind the altar. Slumped against the solid stone, both men breathed shallowly, listening. Rufus could feel Wyatt trembling next to him. He didn’t imagine it was easy to move around quickly after that beating.

He started to turn to Wyatt to check on him and felt the man go still, a hand stretching out across Rufus’ chest, keeping him in place. Across from them, lying on his side with his back to the stone wall of the chancel, was a German soldier. Alive. And staring right at them.

“Oh shit,” Rufus exhaled.

He could feel Wyatt moving very slowly next to him, but was too afraid to tear his eyes away from the soldier, as though his will alone would keep the man from calling out to the others currently patrolling the road in front of the church. Rufus couldn’t think what it would mean if they were taken prisoner by the Germans in 1918. Not just for their lives back in 2016, but for history, period.

The amount of things they could mess up if they stayed for an extended period in this time—especially without Lucy to guide them—could be catastrophic. They could return to a world where a reality TV star was president and running the country via social media, for crying out loud.

Rufus closed his eyes and tried to breathe, calming his racing heart.

As he accepted the fact that Flynn had effectively tied their hands here by taking Lucy—worse than when he’d stranded them in 1754—he realized Wyatt was moving. Rufus blinked in surprise as Wyatt made his way stealthily forward, reaching the German before the soldier could cry out a warning, one hand covering the soldier’s mouth, the other thrusting a bayonet under the man’s ribs.

Rufus blinked in shock, looking to his side to where a discarded rifle lay, now sans bayonet. Looking back at Wyatt, he saw his friend close the German soldier’s eyes with a shaking hand before turning back toward Rufus. They nodded once at each other and Rufus couldn’t help but think Wyatt looked bad ass with blood covering one side of his face.

The voices grew louder and Rufus hazarded a look around the edge of the altar, cursing silently when he saw two German soldiers lounging against the back of a pew at the rear of the sanctuary, sharing a cigarette. He looked back at Wyatt with anxious eyes and saw the wounded soldier was slumped against the body of the German man he’d just killed, one arm wrapped around his middle, eyes tracking the rubble around them.

Just then he spotted something, looking back at Rufus, nodding to their right. Rufus followed his glance and felt hope spike: it was a hallway leading to a collapsed wall and what was left of daylight. All they had to do was move without being seen by the guards at the front of the church.

Sparing another glance at the two guards, Rufus gave a regretful thought to the fact that the Force was not, in fact, A Thing and then looked back at Wyatt. It was now or never. Wyatt pushed to his hands and knees, going pale from the motion, his breath stuttering slightly across his teeth. He nodded once to Rufus, then headed toward the tunnel in a staggered, crouched run.

Rufus waited a beat, listening for signs that Wyatt had been spotted, then followed his friend. Once they were both safely inside the tunnel, they headed toward the light, climbing down the rubble and dropping to the ground. Wyatt was sweating, his breath hitching as he tried to ride out the pain, one arm still wrapped around his middle.

“Let’s go,” Rufus encouraged, pulling one of his friend’s arms over his shoulders. He moved them forward along the backside of the destruction until they reached the town wall where they encountered their next hurdle: a German tank posted just outside the stone barrier.

The two men pressed against the inside of the wall, Wyatt using Rufus’ shoulder as support. Rufus cast a quick glance at the other man, his gut clenching at the lack of color on Wyatt’s face, the blood still seeping sluggishly from the cut along his hair line. A muscle in Wyatt’s jawline jumped as he worked to steady his breathing.

Shouts startled Rufus and he looked back toward the tank, watching as several German soldiers marched four American and two French soldiers through the break in the town wall, all with their hands laced behind their heads. With darkness approaching, they were soon out of sight. He flinched when he heard three gunshots; half of that group hadn’t made it much further than the church.

“This is like a Tarantino movie,” Rufus muttered softly.

“Not enough swearing,” Wyatt returned, his whisper strained.

“You want swearing? I’ll give you swearing.”

“’s my fault, Rufus,” Wyatt whispered, growing heavier against Rufus’ shoulder. “He took her ‘cause of me.”

Rufus pushed Wyatt a bit further uprightb and began to look around the rubble for a discarded weapon—both Wyatt’s .45 and the BAR having been lost in the church.

“He took her ‘cause she’s smart and he’s frustrated.” He wondered how badly they just screwed up the future of warfare with Wyatt’s modern-day weapon left in the rubble of a French village. “You had nothing to do with it.”

_Maybe it’ll be buried in the destruction_ , he hoped.

“Couldn’t beat ‘im,” Wyatt gasped, causing Rufus to look at him worriedly. The man was blinking widely, clearly fighting to stay conscious. “I should have…’n I didn’t….”

Rufus twisted around to face Wyatt, grabbing him gently by the shoulders and forcing the other man to look at him. “Whatever. Look, you’re not Captain America,” Rufus grumbled. “Even if you do look like him a little bit.”

Wyatt blinked slowly in response, his eyes rolling slightly, head tipping back to rest against the wall behind him.

“Hey, man, no. You listen to me,” Rufus slid one hand to the back of Wyatt’s neck, squeezing gently to try to grab his focus. “The dude fought dirty and you hung in there longer than anyone else could have,” Rufus told him. “You might be a little beat up, but we’re still in this fight, you and me.”

That caught Wyatt’s attention and he brought his head up. “We are,” he asserted.

“He took Lucy,” Rufus growled. “And we’re getting her back.”

“We are,” Wyatt repeated, his eyes pinned to Rufus as though drawing strength directly from him. “She’s ours.”

“Damn right she is,” Rufus nodded, pulling Wyatt’s forehead to his shoulder and bracing him for a moment.

Darkness was seeding the rubble-strewn road with thick shadows. The horizon was illuminated with fire from the battle, turning the silent tank into a specter of danger. If they’d both been healthy, Rufus knew they could have scaled the wall and made their way through the field to the trees and the lifeboat. As it was, he didn’t think—

“I can do it,” Wyatt whispered. “I can climb.”

“How do you _do_ that?” Rufus muttered, kneeling in front of his friend.

“’s the only thing that’ll work,” Wyatt replied quietly, and Rufus saw a flash of teeth in the growing starlight as Wyatt’s tongue darted out to dab at the cuts in his lip. “I can do it.”

“Well, I’m not going back without you,” Rufus stated. “And don’t even think about passing out on me, ‘cause I’m not strong enough to carry your ass.”

“Roger that,” Wyatt managed, closing his eyes for a moment. “We need weapons.”

“Yeah, been trying to find—“

“The body…,” Wyatt exhaled shakily, then squared his shoulders, as if physically manifesting strength by force of will. “That German over there. Check his body.”

Rufus nodded and moved carefully across the stones to the German. Grimacing as he rolled the body over, he pumped his fist in celebration upon sighting a rifle beneath the body and a handgun tucked into the man’s leather belt. Grabbing both, he made his way back to Wyatt, who grinned at him.

“Nicely done,” Wyatt complimented him in a low whisper. “Ammo?”

“Uh…no idea.” Rufus handed them to Wyatt and watched as the man opened each weapon quickly and quietly in the starlight, checking to see if there were any bullets remaining.

“We got a few rounds each,” Wyatt reassured him. “You take the Luger, I’ll handle the Mauser.”

“Uh…the which now?” Rufus peered at him.

Wyatt gave him the handgun. “This is a Luger P08,” he informed him. “There’s no safety. You have five bullets left. If you have to use it, make each shot count.”

Rufus noted that as night took hold and purpose drove him, Wyatt’s strength seemed to be returning. Of course, he had yet to move away from the wall, but for the first time since Flynn hauled Lucy away, Rufus felt like there was a chance they could make it. He carefully peered around the barrier of rubble that protected them; he could barely make out the break in the wall the tank protected. It was impossible to see if it was being guarded and by how many men.

He could see the glowing tip of cigarettes near the entrance to the church, and he longed to stretch up and peer over the wall to see what would be waiting for them on the other side, but knew that was just asking for a bullet. Wyatt tugged on the edge of his uniform, pulling him down next to him.

Rufus looked at him, questioningly, and tracked the other man’s gaze to the crumbling top of the church tower. A flicker of flame momentarily reflected against the face of a man, and in the following darkness within, Rufus could see starlight glinting off the barrel of a rifle.

“Well, that’s just fantastic,” he muttered, crouching close to Wyatt. “There are two more outside the church,” he informed him.

Wyatt nodded. “If we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it now,” he said. “The longer Flynn has Lucy, the worse things get for all of us.”

“Not arguing with that,” Rufus whispered back, “but you’re walking wounded, and we’ve got at least three Germans not fifty feet away from us…not to mention the freaking _tank_.”

“Rufus,” Wyatt said, his whisper shifting in tone and grabbing Rufus’ attention. “We are going to make it out of this.”

Rufus swallowed hard, nodding hesitantly.

“We are.” Wyatt grabbed the front of Rufus’ uniform in a loose grip. “You and me, we’re getting back to that lifeboat.”

There was something in the way Wyatt spoke the words, something in the determination the starlight revealed on his wounded face that gave Rufus an idea of what it was like to serve alongside the man in a warzone. Listening to Wyatt now, he understood why the men in his company would willingly put their lives in his hands, trusting him to save their lives if possible, and to do the right thing, always.

“Okay,” Rufus nodded. “How?”

Wyatt took a steadying breath. “Boost me up, over the wall,” he said. “I’ll cover the tower while you climb. Then we run like hell.”

Rufus adjusted his grip on the Luger, nodding. Taking Wyatt’s arm, he pulled the other man up to a crouch, noting how Wyatt sucked in a breath at the movement. Shoving the pistol into his waistband, Rufus made a saddle of his hands and braced himself to take Wyatt’s weight. They paused for a second listening for movement, voices, anything to signal they’d been spotted, then Wyatt hefted himself to the top of the wall.

Rufus heard the man’s pained gasp slide into a bitten-off whimper, then Wyatt disappeared to the other side of the wall. Waiting a half-second to see if they’d attracted the attention of the Germans, Rufus climbed the wall, paused for a moment at the top, then dropped down on the other side next to where Wyatt was lying, fighting to catch his breath.

“Two…two men,” Wyatt breathed, his voice barely holding any weight. “On the tank.”

A shout echoed from within the church, words that Rufus didn’t need to understand to know the meaning behind. He pulled his weapon from his belt and reached for Wyatt. Pulling the other man to his feet, he was amazed to see that Wyatt already had the stolen rifle in his hands, strap wrapped around his forearm, barrel coming up to sight over the edge of the wall as they backed away through the shadows.

“He’s calling to the tank,” Wyatt gasped.

Rufus wasn’t sure where to aim his pistol. He kept his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder to keep them close and continued to move back.

“Watch the men…on the tank,” Wyatt ordered, his whisper growing in volume as a heavy metal _clank_ echoed through the rubble-strewn streets of Château-Thierry.

“What about that tower?” Rufus whispered back, frantic, as he tried to see through the dark.

“You worry about those soldiers,” Wyatt snapped, “I’ll worry about the tower.”

They continued to stumble back away from the wall and Rufus yelped when a bullet pinged off the rocks along the wall, another _thunking_ against the ground near his feet. Wyatt suddenly fired. Rufus darted a look toward the church tower and saw a man tumble forward. That seemed to be the signal for all Hell to break loose.

“ _Go_!” Wyatt yelled, all pretense of sneaking away in the dark forgotten. “ _Go, now_!”

Rufus didn’t release his grip on Wyatt’s shoulder, he just ran. He turned and fired back toward the tank as bullets whizzed past his ear, barely missing him. Wyatt kept up with him until they reached the edge of the open grain field; Rufus felt the other man stumble, going to his knees in the dirt as German shouting and the sound of a tank firing up reached their ears.

“C’mon, man,” Rufus gasped for air, dropping his Luger and reaching for Wyatt with both hands. “You got this, c’mon.”

Wyatt lacked the energy to speak, simply nodding and gripping Rufus’ forearms, dragging himself to his feet. Rufus tugged Wyatt’s arm across his shoulders and took off, their combined gate awkward and not nearly as fast as Rufus needed it to be, but they were moving. The only thing that saved them was the lack of a moon. The horizon was lit with the fires and fighting from Belleau Wood in the distance, throwing the field and their escape route into shadow, making them impossible to spot.

Rufus could hear the tank advancing along the rutted, dirt road, but they were angling well away from its path, passing the area where Flynn’s mothership had been hidden, making their way through the copse of trees, covering ground in a staggering, painful serpentine movement toward the lifeboat.

Wyatt was heavy against him, the man’s breath rasping painfully through his wounded mouth. Rufus could feel Wyatt’s fingers digging into his shoulder, desperate to keep moving, keep upright. When the lifeboat came into view, he nearly went to his knees in relief, but knew that if he went down, Wyatt would never get up. He hauled them both to the door, hitting the latch, then climbing inside before turning and dragging Wyatt behind him.

Dropping heavily into his seat, Wyatt sat trembling, his head bleeding down his neck and staining the collar of his uniform. Rufus climbed over him and made his way to the pilot’s seat, turning on the machine in a series of movements that felt automatic by now.

“You with me, man?” Rufus called back over his shoulder, his voice rough and thin from their run. When he didn’t get a response, he looked back at Wyatt. “Hey.”

“’m here,” Wyatt replied weakly, his head back, one arm wrapped around his middle.

“Get you back,” Rufus said, more to himself than anything, “get you fixed up, get Lucy.”

“No,” Wyatt rasped. Rufus felt a hand at his sleeve and looked down, then back over at Wyatt, wincing as the man’s battered face peered at him in the light of the lifeboat’s interior.

“What d’you mean, _no_?”

“Just…get Lucy.”

Rufus frowned, looking at the read-out on the dash. “I…I can’t—“

“You know where they are.”

Rufus swallowed. It physically hurt to listen to Wyatt’s ragged voice. “Yeah, I can see where he went, but we can’t follow.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I was working on,” Rufus twisted in his seat to so that he could look at Wyatt directly. “Jiya figured out how to trace Flynn’s ship from here, but I haven’t figured out how we can go from one time to another without touching base back home first. Refueling. We don’t have a nuclear engine, y’know.”

“Right,” Wyatt closed his eyes, his brows pulling tight across the bridge of his nose in a grimace.

“And you look like hell, man,” Rufus informed him. “Need to get you to medical—“

“No,” Wyatt opened his eyes and rolled his head along the seat so that he was looking directly at Rufus. “Don’t waste time with that. Promise me.”

“Wyatt,” Rufus leaned forward. “You are bleeding from the head. Your eye is a mess. I saw Flynn lay into you, man. Don’t sit there and tell me your ribcage is in one piece. You’re not that good of a liar.”

Wyatt arched an eyebrow at him, and Rufus heard the unspoken sarcastic retort shimmer through the air before the other man deflated. “Probably cracked a couple ribs.”

“You’re no good to me or to Lucy if you’re all broken up inside,” Rufus replied. “We’ll get you patched up and then we’ll get her back.”

He started to turn back to the controls when Wyatt’s hand reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “Don’t let them keep me there.”

Rufus frowned. “Who? Keep you…?”

“Christopher. Mason.” Wyatt clenched his jaw, riding out an obvious wave of pain. “I gotta find her, Rufus. Don’t let them keep me there.”

Rufus nodded slowly. “We’ll get her back,” he promised. “Together.”

Wyatt released Rufus’ arm.

“Now buckle your ass in, because I’m ready to get out of…,” he looked down at the readout on his dash, the coordinates for Flynn’s mothership blinking at him. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Wyatt asked, fumbling with the safety harness.

“He’s here.”

“Flynn?” Wyatt’s question spiked with surprise.

“The one and only.”

“Well, let’s—“

Rufus grabbed his own harness. “Not _here_ here. He’s here…in 1943.”

“What…did he just get the wrong year before?” Wyatt asked, genuine confusion in his tone.

“Who the hell knows,” Rufus sighed. “But I guess France isn’t done with us yet.”

Rufus glanced once back at Wyatt to make sure the man’s harness was fastened, then took a breath and input the series of commands for their return. The pull on his system was intense, twisting his equilibrium until it was sideways, sending his senses spinning. When they rocked to an abrupt stand-still, Rufus took a moment to grab a steadying breath; he seemed to be affected by the intense motion of time travel a bit less than Lucy and Wyatt, but it was still jarring.

Unbuckling his harness, he started to turn toward Wyatt, wanting to get their story straight before confronting the questions that awaited them, when he saw the other man hanging limp and unresponsive against his harness.

“Oh, shit,” Rufus muttered, scrambling out of his seat and crouching in front of Wyatt. He took the other man’s face in his hand, tipping Wyatt’s head up by his chin. “Hey, man. Wyatt, c’mon.”

He could feel Wyatt’s rapid pulse beneath is fingers, the blood on the soldier’s face drying in some areas, tacky in others. His skin was pale, and his breath barely ghosted Rufus’ fingers.

“C’mon,” Rufus patted Wyatt’s cheek, “open your eyes, Wyatt. Hey, wake up.”

Wyatt groaned, his eyes rolling beneath his lids as he fought for consciousness.

“That’s it, there you go,” Rufus encouraged. “You want them to let you find Lucy, don’t you? Have to be awake for that.”

Wyatt frowned, his tongue sliding out to dab at a cut on his lip. He blinked slowly, eyes finally coming into focus on Rufus’ face. Rufus did his best not to wince.

“’Bout time.”

“Wha…what happened?” Wyatt muttered, blinking again, his eyes roaming the interior of the lifeboat.

“You let time travel get the best of you,” Rufus informed him.

“Shit,” Wyatt grimaced, reaching up to rub at his head. “We’re back?”

Rufus sat back on his heels, frowning in sympathy. “We’re back. And we better get out there before they take a blow torch to the door,” Rufus told him. “You gonna be able to do this?”

“’m fine,” Wyatt muttered, fumbling with his harness.

Sighing, Rufus knocked his hands out of the way, unhooking Wyatt’s harness for him. “Try that once more, with feeling,” he returned.

Wyatt took a slow, shallow breath, then bent his chin to catch Rufus’ eyes. “I’m fine, Rufus. I can do this.”

“Well, you managed to climb that wall when you said you could, so…,” Rufus shrugged, then moved toward the door.

“Hey,” Wyatt called just as Rufus reached for the door. Rufus turned back to look at him. “You were awesome back there. With the Germans,” he said, eyes clear and focused. “I’d be proud to serve with you any day.”

“Yeah, well,” Rufus turned away. “I’m a computer geek. Not a soldier.”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Wyatt muttered as the door slid open.

Rufus raised his eyebrows in surprise to see Jiya standing just outside the door, hand poised over the external lock.

“Hey,” he greeted, jumping down. “What—“

Apparently throwing all pretense to the wind, Jiya launched herself at him, wrapping him up in a mighty hug and breathing him in. “I thought…when you landed and the door didn’t open, I thought….”

“I’m okay,” Rufus reassured her, holding her tight for a moment before gently stepping back. “Jiya, I promise. I’m fine.”

Jiya’s large, dark eyes danced over his face, looking for confirmation before they shifted over his shoulder and widened. He knew she’d gotten a glimpse of Wyatt. Turning to offer the other man a hand, he swallowed a smile of pride when Wyatt jumped down on his own, holding himself carefully as he lifted his chin and squared off with Agent Christopher, who’d joined Jiya on the platform.

“Master Sergeant Logan,” Agent Christopher exclaimed. “What the _hell_ happened to you?”

“Flynn,” Wyatt replied, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes on a spot just over Agent Christopher’s head.

Rufus glanced down at Jiya when he heard her gasp at Wyatt’s response. “You should see the other guy,” he said softly, trying to elicit a smile.

“By the looks of you,” Agent Christopher remarked, her eyes raking Wyatt’s bloodied, disheveled appearance, “the other guy should be dead.”

“Well, he’s not, ma’am,” Wyatt replied. “And it gets worse.”

“How could it be—“

“Where’s Lucy?” Jiya interrupted, peering into the lifeboat.

Rufus tightened his arm around her shoulder as Wyatt took a breath.

“Flynn took her,” he replied.

The silence in the hanger bay beat against Rufus’ ears.

“Say that one more time,” Agent Christopher ordered, her head tilted in disbelief.

“Flynn and his men grabbed Lucy and took her with them before we could stop them, ma’am,” Wyatt responded, keeping any form of apology from his tone.

Agent Christopher’s eyes skimmed Wyatt’s wounded face, then came to rest on Rufus. “What do you have to say about this?” she demanded.

Rufus opened his mouth to reply, but Wyatt stepped in.

“Rufus was overpowered,” he said, his eyes dropping level to Agent Christopher and Rufus felt a slim burst of satisfaction when the woman’s expression flinched in response to the battered features before her. “If there is blame for this, it’s on me. I couldn’t stop Flynn—“

“Because he fought dirty,” Rufus interjected. “The man used brass knuckles!”

“You had a weapon, didn’t you?” Agent Christopher challenged.

“All due respect, ma’am,” Wyatt replied, his tone inferring that the exact amount of respect due in this instance was zero, “you weren’t there. Flynn and his men had an agenda and Lucy was on it. We’re wasting time talking about it. We need to refuel and get her back.”

“You know where they went?”

Rufus looked up to see Connor Mason standing behind the bank of computers, watching the exchange.

“Same place, different time,” Rufus replied to the man. “Jiya’s algorithm worked like a charm.” He glanced down at the woman next to him and returned her quick smile.

Agent Christopher sighed, eyes flicking between them, then nodded once. “Logan, you’re fit enough for this?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wyatt replied without hesitation.

“Go down to medical and get stitched up,” she ordered. “Then change clothes, both of you. We’ll get the lifeboat ready.”

Rufus watched Wyatt stride away in a stiff, stilted gait that practically screamed _pain_ , but saw no one else was looking his way. He followed Jiya to wardrobe and grabbed two U.S. soldier uniforms appropriate for 1943.

“The algorithm really worked?” Jiya asked him, selecting two pairs of boots in their respective sizes.

“Perfectly,” Rufus smiled at her. “If we’d had the other half finished, we could have gone after Lucy from 1918.”

“Well,” Jiya cautioned, following him as he made his way to medical with their change of clothes. “Except that you wouldn’t have had enough power to get home.”

Rufus slowed, tilting his head. “True.”

“But…we can work on that, too,” Jiya offered. “I mean, with enough time, we could turn the lifeboat into a second mothership.”

Rufus tilted his head in her direction. “Is it ironic that we’re always running out of time to work on our time machine?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Jiya nodded, following Rufus into medical.

Wyatt sat on an exam bed, shirtless, his head hanging low, his knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the mattress. Deep purple bruises were visible on his chest, and blood stained the left side of his neck. At their entrance, he brought his head up and both Rufus and Jiya skidded to a halt.

“You look terrible,” Jiya murmured.

“Gee, thanks,” Wyatt groused, raising an eyebrow. “I feel like a million bucks.”

“She’s not lying, man,” Rufus informed him. “You’re the personification of a whiter shade of pale.”

“Pain will do that to you,” came a voice from behind them. Rufus turned to see a dark-haired, blue-eyed female medic wearing a white lab coat over what appeared to be Army fatigues enter holding a small vile and a syringe.

“What’s that?” Rufus asked.

“Cocktail of pain meds and stimulants,” the medic replied. “Otherwise known as a Really Bad Idea.”

“Just stitch me up, doc,” Wyatt sighed. “I’ve had the stims before.”

“You should be resting, letting those ribs heal,” the medic snapped, clearly unhappy with the position she’d been placed in. “Broken ribs are nothing to mess with, Sergeant. You jostle one the wrong way, you’re looking at a pneumothorax.”

“A what?” Jiya asked.

“Collapsed lung,” Wyatt filled in. “And I’ll be fine if you wrap them tight enough.”

The medic narrowed her eyes at him, then looked back at Rufus. “I suppose you’re taking responsibility for him?”

“Hey, now—“

“Yes,” Rufus interrupted Wyatt’s protest. “Yeah, I’ll watch out for him.”

“Watch his breathing,” she instructed. “And _do not_ let him get hit in the chest again.”

Wyatt attempted to roll his eyes, but winced as pain visibly stabbed through his head.

“I hear you,” Rufus nodded. “Thanks for not fighting him on this, Doctor….”

“Berge,” the medic replied. “Sophie Berge. And guess if I wanted easy patients, I wouldn’t have joined up with Mason and his crazy time travel voodoo in the first place. Just…,” she looked back at Wyatt. “Be smart.”

Wyatt narrowed his eyes and gave Dr. Berge a two-finger salute. Rufus squeezed Jiya’s hand, watching as she stepped from the room and then moved behind the curtain to change from one uniform into another.

“We got a plan?” he called to Wyatt—legitimately curious, but mostly wanting to keep the other man focused.

“He was in that church for a reason,” Wyatt replied, his voice tight. “I think whatever that key fits…it’s in there,” he gasped, groaning slightly, then continued, “or at least _he_ thinks it is.”

“So, we land and head right back to the church at Château-Thierry?”

“Seems as good a plan as any,” Wyatt forced out.

“Hold still,” Dr. Berge admonished.

Rufus stepped around the curtain, watching as Dr. Berge continue to stitch up the cut along Wyatt’s hairline. She’d washed the blood from his face and had used butterfly bandages to close the cuts above and below his left eye. Somehow that made the burst blood vessels in the white of his eye stand out even more.

“We got any idea what kind of…of environment we’ll be walking into?” Rufus asked, fastening the last of the buttons on his uniform. “Without Lucy, I mean?”

“You guys got something against Google?” Dr. Berge asked as she wrapped bandages around Wyatt’s bruised chest, causing the soldier to pale even further and close his eyes.

“Good point. Uh…I’ll ask Jiya to look it up,” Rufus said. He pointed toward the uniform he’d set on the edge of the exam table. “You gonna be okay here?”

“Been dressing myself for a lotta years,” Wyatt replied, his voice thin.

“Right,” Rufus exchanged a glance with Dr. Berge, then headed toward the door. “Meet you at the lifeboat.”

“Hey,” Dr. Berge called. Rufus turned and caught the silver-wrapped packet she tossed at him.

“Protein bar?” he asked.

“Eat something,” she ordered. “That lifeboat isn’t the only thing that needs fuel.”

Roughly thirty minutes later, Wyatt joined him at the lifeboat, a half-eaten protein bar in one hand, a pistol in the other.

“You want a weapon this time out?” he asked. “You’re pretty good in a fight. We could use you.”

“Think I’ll leave the shooting up to you,” Rufus told him. “I am going to need both hands just to keep you on your feet.”

Wyatt smirked at him, and Rufus had to admit the man looked much steadier than he had when they arrived. That cocktail must have done the trick.

“Get Lucy and get back,” Agent Christopher ordered.

“What, no…kill Flynn or you’re fired?” Wyatt remarked.

“No, find out what he’s doing with that key?” Rufus chimed in.

Agent Christopher narrowed her eyes at them. “When I have all three of our team back in one piece, I’ll reevaluate the situation.”

“Roger that, ma’am,” Wyatt nodded, tucking the pistol into his belt and climbing into the lifeboat.

“Rufus,” Jiya called from her computer. “Be careful.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he replied, smiling at her, and hoping with everything in him that was true.

* * *

_Château-Thierry, France  
December 1943_

When he was a boy, Wyatt had asked his grandfather to tell him stories of fighting in WWII. He imagined great feats of bravery and brotherhood, clear dividing lines between the righteous American soldiers and the evil Nazis. He imagined his grandfather marching triumphantly into battle, dispatching the sinister forces who dared threaten freedom and liberty.

It wasn’t until he was marching through a desert city with eighty pounds of gear on his back, his rifle cold and dead in his hands, his head on a swivel and eyes ceaseless in their vigilance that he realized the truth of it: war was hell, pure and simple. War was endless monotony punctuated by moments of pure terror.

It was watching men he’d known all his life die and having men he met the day before save his life. It was figuring out which person needed protection and which person was a threat when they all dressed and talked alike. It was women and children walking down a street strapped with bombs while young men offered aid and rescue.

Returning to a version of normal from that kind of inside out world hadn’t been easy. The first couple of times, he’d elected to return within months. The last, he’d been given mandatory downtime. Apparently, losing his entire squad left a mark on his record and his psyche. Jessica had her work cut out for her then, bringing him back to himself.

Or…at least pretend that he was back. He’d gotten pretty good at pretending.

Until he met Agent Denise Christopher and she pulled back the curtain, revealing the possibility of time travel, and introduced him to a new team. A team that seemed to be systematically stripping down the layers of protection he’d spent years building up around him enabling him to keep up the pretense.

“Annndd, we’re back,” Rufus commented when the rip-pull of time travel ceased and the world slowed its crazy spin.

The pain meds and stims he’d been given back at Mason Industries had dulled the ache that had become a bit of a constant companion back in 1918 and Wyatt felt thankfully more alert than he had since before they’d left on this mission. Unbuckling his harness, he spared a quick glance at the empty seat across from him before standing and giving way to Rufus.

“Jiya give you an idea of what we’re going to find on the other side of this door?”

“All she could find out was information about 1918—and the fact that a battleship in WWII had been named _The Belleau Wood_ after the battle we were just at,” Rufus told him. “So, since I’m _not_ a historian, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it should be peaceful here,” he finished, reaching for the panel. “Well, and freezing. I mean, it _is_ December.”

“Fantastic,” Wyatt muttered.

“You ready?”

Wyatt nodded. “Let’s get our girl back.”

Rufus and Jiya had positioned the lifeboat to land in approximately the same place they’d been before. Wyatt wasn’t surprised to see that not much had changed in the twenty-five years—and four hours—since they’d last been in this area of France. The field had been plowed and the left-over grain stalks were frosted and gleaming in the moonlit night.

Their breath clouded before their faces as they stepped out into the crisp night. Wyatt saw Rufus shiver and attempt to burrow deeper into his uniform; they hadn’t brought overcoats. There hadn’t been time to think of such things. The cold made him worry about Lucy; when last he saw her, she was wearing a nurse’s uniform from 1918— _June_ 1918\. If Flynn hadn’t thought to provide for her, she’d be freezing.

“Oh, wow,” Rufus breathed, and Wyatt brought his head up, following his friend’s gaze. “Look at that.”

Wyatt’s eyes skimmed over the dark expanse of Belleau Woods, areas of destruction now quiet, new growth filling in the holes created by artillery and tanks. Across the open area, Wyatt could see a small sea of white crosses, each one catching the brilliant white of the moonlight. His chest tightened, his eyes burned.

It was a monument. A memorial. To the brave, to the dead, to the lessons that should have been learned.

He swallowed hard, trying to stamp down a rough surge of emotion, but felt the heat of an unexpected tear trace a path down his bruised cheekbone and find a home at the corner of his mouth. He looked away from the crosses, in the direction of Château-Thierry, trying to quiet his breathing, but hearing the hitch and stutter there expose the rawness of his weakened walls.

“You okay?” Rufus asked quietly, clearly having seen his embarrassing display of emotion.

“Fine,” Wyatt replied, gruffly.

To his immense relief, Rufus left it alone, shut the door of the lifeboat, and started forward across the field.

“Hope Flynn hasn’t killed anyone yet,” Rufus commented to the night. “I’m tired of seeing dead people.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt replied tightly. “Never gets any easier.”

They walked in silence for a bit, Wyatt trapped in a sadistic loop of memories. He was thinking about coin tosses. And Zach’s confident smile when he handed Wyatt the intel that had to get out of Syria. He was thinking about the moment someone’s eyes lost that light of life, about how it didn’t drain like they claimed in books, it was simply gone. Like someone blowing out a candle flame.

“What happened with you and Lucy back in 1934?”

Wyatt blinked, momentarily confused, looking over at Rufus blankly.

“Wyatt?” Rufus stopped, putting his hand on Wyatt’s arm to stop him as well. “Hey, you with me?”

Wyatt looked at the frost-covered field, their footprints leaving a trail of broken-off wheat stubs. He looked back at the lifeboat, now barely visible in the moonlight, then ahead toward the group of trees that stood between them and the town. He closed his eyes. _France, 1943_. He wasn’t in Syria. This was a whole different mission, a whole different team.

“Yeah,” he replied, opening his eyes once more, looking back at Rufus. “And I thought Lucy said she’d tell you when we got back.”

Rufus frowned, his dark eyes searching Wyatt’s face, slowly releasing Wyatt’s arm. “But it _was_ something.”

Wyatt started walking once more, the silence beating against his ears like chopper blades. They made their way into the copse of trees, just as before. Rufus followed closely, and Wyatt could practically hear the man’s wheels turning. Just as Rufus opened his mouth to ask another way, Wyatt spoke up.

“I kissed her.”

Rufus stumbled to a halt, but when Wyatt kept moving, the other man scrambled to catch up.

“Bonnie and Clyde were over the moon in love and we had to sell that we were engaged, too,” Wyatt explained. “I told them some story about asking her to marry me and I could tell…I could see Clyde wasn’t buying it. The guy…he was bad news.”

“Yeah, I saw the movie,” Rufus commented.

“So…I kissed her,” Wyatt sighed, allowing himself to remember what it had felt like to sink into that touch, the spark that shot through him when their lips met, how warm and _right_ it felt to have her breath mix with his, to feel the softness of her skin against his calloused palm. “It wasn’t planned and I didn’t clear it with her…I just….”

“Played the part,” Rufus recalled their earlier conversation.

“Right.”

“And it meant nothing.”

It meant everything, Wyatt knew.

It was the first time he’d kissed another woman since he’d met Jessica. The first time he’d felt his heart kick, reminding him that he was _alive,_ since she’d died. It was the first time he’d wanted to be close—physically close—to another human being who wasn’t trying to save his life in the whole long span of time since he’d lost the only person he’d ever thought would matter to him like that.

“Hey, we didn’t get killed by Bonnie and Clyde,” Wyatt glanced askance at Rufus as they moved through the trees. “So, that’s something.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rufus replied. He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it with a click, his lips working around the absence of sound.

“What?” Wyatt challenged. “Spit it out before you choke on it, man.”

“Just that…ever since then…,” Rufus shrugged, pausing with one hand on a large oak tree, “Jiya’s noticed you don’t sleep at home.”

Wyatt frowned, moving around Rufus toward the clearing. “One’s got nothing to do with the other.”

“That right?”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Wyatt snapped, feeling his throat tighten at the idea that someone could see through him so easily. “Let’s just get to—“

“Hey, Wyatt, listen,” Rufus stopped him, scurrying around to face him. “It’s okay, man. You don’t have to be the toughest guy here. Not with us.”

Wyatt looked at the other man for a moment, weighing his words, hoping they were true, and nearly spoke up to thank him when the sound of a rifle shot shattered the stillness of the night, sending them both into a crouch.

“It came from town,” Wyatt muttered, checking his own weapon and moving toward the edge of the trees.

“I bet you a box of Chocodiles I can narrow it down more than that,” Rufus commented.

Eyeing the distance between the trees and the rebuilt wall surrounding Château-Thierry, Wyatt rubbed at his chin in thought, avoiding the cuts along his bottom lip.

“He’s gonna know we’re coming,” he said, “and if he is in the church, he’ll have someone on lookout in the tower.”

“The moon isn’t exactly our friend right now,” Rufus grumbled.

Wyatt shook his head. “We need a diversion…get them to look one way while we head the other.”

“Okay. Any bright ideas?”

Wyatt reached into the pocket of his uniform and withdrew a lighter and a pocketknife. “Think you can find some relatively dry wood?”

Rufus grinned. “You got it, MacGyver.”

It took them a few minutes to find enough wood to start a respectable fire. Wyatt quietly lamented having to destroy more of the wooded area, but it was all he could come up with; he hadn’t even meant to bring the lighter—it had just been sitting on Dr. Berge’s counter next to the knife. Once the blaze was burning brightly on its own, they fed it more dry underbrush, coaxing the flames to grow and travel, setting the ground on fire.

Watching the town, Wyatt saw the glint of a spyglass reflect the moonlight.

“They see it,” he told Rufus.

“Think they’ll take the bait?”

“Only one way to find out,” Wyatt replied, and headed out of the protection of trees toward the town wall, ignoring Rufus’ hissed protest and trusting the man to follow.

When no shots rang out, he figured they were safe from their tower lookout. They reached the break in the wall that allowed for the road entrance and slipped around the side, entering the quiet town. It looked different without the rubble, Wyatt noticed. Quaint, almost. Part of him wanted to visit this area in the present time, just to see how the wounds of war had been healed—or at the very least, scarred over.

They moved swiftly toward the church, both glancing over their shoulders at the fire they’d created. It was growing in intensity, eating up several of the larger trees and turning the field into a beacon of light. He hoped the frozen stalks kept the flames from reaching the town.

“No! Let me _go_!”

Wyatt shot a look at Rufus as they pressed their backs against the church wall. “That’s Lucy,” he whispered. Rufus nodded. Wyatt pulled out his pistol and took a breath. “I’ll go in first, distract Flynn. First chance you get, you grab Lucy and get the hell out of there.”

“What about you?” Rufus countered.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Wyatt promised, moving with his back to the wall around to the entrance of the church.

Both men held still, listening.

“I told you, Lucy,” Flynn was saying, his voice sounding oddly muffled, “ _you_ were the one who said we would be working together. It’s in _your_ journal!”

“I told you I didn’t write that,” Lucy spat. Wyatt smiled. She sounded _pissed_. “And I’m not going to help you find that clock.”

“We’ve traced it to this town,” Flynn continued as if Lucy hadn’t spoken. “I was wrong about the war, but I was right about the town.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” Lucy practically growled.

“I want you,” Flynn roared and Wyatt could hear his footsteps echo as he crossed the sanctuary, “to tell me where Father Aubry would have hidden an artifact from the Nazi’s!”

“Well,” Lucy returned, her voice trembling slightly, “if your goons hadn’t killed him, we could have asked _him_!”

Flynn shouted a wordless exclamation of frustration and Wyatt looked back at Rufus, nodding once. Before Flynn could say another word, Wyatt stepped through the door of the church. He was immediately reminded of the last time he crossed that threshold and he couldn’t help but glance to the left, thinking of D’Antonio’s body, before looking back across the room to where Flynn stood next to Lucy.

Her hands were tied in front of her, but she looked relatively unscathed. Flynn was still bloody from their earlier battle, white tape across his broken nose, his eyes blackened. Two of his men were slouched against the altar, a body in priest’s robes lying at the foot of the altar as though the man died during prayer.

“Wyatt,” Lucy breathed, the relief in her voice permeating the room.

“You are a very hard man to kill, Master Sergeant Logan,” Flynn sighed tiredly.

Something in the other man’s dismissive posture triggered Wyatt unexpectedly. He didn’t want to keep this up, keep chasing this man across time, keep putting his team—his friends—in danger. He wanted to end this, now. He steadied his aim and saw the exact moment Flynn recognized the purpose in his stance.

Before Wyatt could pull the trigger, Flynn grabbed Lucy, tugging her forward and using her slim body as a shield.

“You don’t want to kill me, Wyatt,” Flynn informed him.

“Yeah? And why’s that?”

“Because you want to know the truth behind Rittenhouse as much as I do,” Flynn stated. “And if you kill me, then your job is done…and then you’ll never know the truth.”

“Truth is overrated,” Wyatt shot back, keeping his eyes level with Flynn, not allowing himself to look at Lucy, afraid the look in her eyes would pull him down.

“Even if the truth is about your wife?” Flynn taunted.

“Don’t…don’t listen to him,” Lucy gasped out. Wyatt met her eyes briefly before looking away. There was dirt on her face and her hair had fallen out of its pins, but her eyes were hot and angry, not afraid as he’d worried they’d be. “He’ll say anything to get to you.”

“Yes, maybe I will,” Flynn conceded. “But then…we are all of us just trying to get what we want, aren’t we?”

He tightened his grip on Lucy and Wyatt took a few steps forward. With a stab of regret, he realized he’d lost track of where the other two men were, and remembered there had been three back in 1918. He spared a concerned thought for Rufus as he closed the gap between himself and Lucy.

“Miss Preston here wants to preserve history…but for what? She’s already lost her sister,” Flynn goaded, causing Lucy to twist in his arms.

“How did you know—“

“When will you believe me about your journal?” Flynn sighed dramatically. “It’s all right there. Your daddy isn’t your daddy…but do you know who is?”

“Stop it!” Wyatt barked. “Let her go, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

“You won’t kill me,” Flynn replied with a casual shrug, “no matter what I do to her.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Wyatt moved closer. “You hurt my team, it won’t matter what happens to me. I’ll _end_ you.”

“Ah, yes…,” Flynn smiled, though his eyes were cold. “Your _team_.”

The sound of a struggle met Wyatt’s ears and he glanced back to see Flynn’s third man, plus Rufus’ former friend, Anthony, holding Rufus tightly between them, the black man’s face a mask of fury.

“’m sorry, man,” Rufus gasped. “I didn’t expect to see Anthony.”

Wyatt turned back toward Flynn, taking another step toward him, his arm starting to ache, the pain slipping down his ribs and cramping the muscles along his back.

“Still not ready to give up, I see,” Flynn remarked, his hand moving up to grasp Lucy beneath her chin, his fingers wrapping around her throat.

“You think I believe you’re going to kill her?” Wyatt scoffed. “After all that _we’re destined to work together_ crap I heard coming out of your mouth?”

Flynn narrowed his eyes at Wyatt, and then several things happened very fast. Flynn looked at someone out of Wyatt’s peripheral vision, Lucy gasped but was unable to shout out a warning as Flynn’s hand closed over her mouth, and the sound of a gun being cocked echoed across the empty sanctuary.

Wyatt moved on instinct alone, ducking behind a pew as a bullet ricocheted off the stone wall behind him. He dared a look from his hiding place and saw the two men he’d lost track of forming up on him, Flynn holding Lucy fast up by the safety of the altar, Anthony and the third man immobilizing Rufus at the back of the sanctuary.

Wyatt spun quickly through his options; his team was safe for the moment. Captured, but not in immediate danger. If he could take out these two, they might stand a chance. He broke his cover briefly to fire two shots over the edge of the pew, then rotated and ducked behind one of the large, stone pillars.

“Wyatt!” Lucy managed to shout as she continued to struggle against Flynn’s hold.

Adrenaline surged through him, blocking out the aches and pains trying to make themselves known. Darting a look around the pillar, Wyatt spied one of the men and shifted his weapon free, firing two more shots, one catching the man in the shoulder. He hid once more as the man spun sideways and went down with a shout of surprised pain.

“Shoot him, damn you!” Flynn ordered. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Wyatt knew he had to move; the other man would have circled around by this time. He crouched low, wincing at the pull on his damaged ribs, and scrambled down along one of the rows of pews, seeing Rufus struggling against the men who held him fast. He met his teammate’s eyes, then broke cover once more to shoot at the scurrying figure of the last man.

Hiding once more, Wyatt felt his body protest, and pressed a hand against his wounded side. Dr. Berge would not be happy about this little game of cat-and-mouse he was currently engaged in.

“Look out!” Rufus suddenly shouted.

On instinct, Wyatt shot a look to his left and saw Flynn’s man rounding the corner of the pews, his weapon up. Wyatt twisted away, gasping as the movement stabbed through him, and shot twice more over his shoulder toward where he’d last seen his assailant. Now he was exposed, crouched in the center aisle, Flynn at one end with Lucy, Rufus and his captors at the other. Thinking quickly, Wyatt surged upright and tried to run toward a small alcove that had clearly once housed a statue.

He didn’t make it.

A shot rang out; he felt a tug at his shoulder and cried out in surprised pain. It was only a graze, but it was enough to send him stumbling forward against the pews, his weakened ribcage rattled by the impact. He heard a click directly behind him and realized the man had fired again, landing on an empty cylinder—blind luck was his saving grace.

Wyatt turned, bringing his weapon up in defense, but the man slammed into him from the side. The impact sent him staggering, but it was the following crash of a fist that took him to his knees.

The man attacked him with precision; with barely-restrained fury, Flynn’s man knocked his weapon from his hand, the air from his lungs, and had him pressed face-first onto the floor, his arms turned behind him before he even got one punch in.

_Some protector_ , he scoffed at himself.

Twisting painfully so that he could see Lucy, he met her eyes, unaware of the plea he held in his gaze, simply needing her to know he was sorry he couldn’t save her.

“You were right about one thing,” Flynn said, approaching him and dragging Lucy along. “I won’t kill her. But the journal didn’t say anything about me working with _you_.”

At those words, Lucy went very still, her dark eyes wide. Wyatt didn’t take his gaze off her face. He knew he was about to die; it was past time for it to happen. It should have been in Syria with his team. It should have been on the side of the road instead of Jessica. Dying in France, in 1943, was just as good a place as any…as long as he knew his team would be okay.

“In fact,” Flynn bent low, forcing Lucy to her knees as he taunted Wyatt, “she is the _only_ one I need.”

“Flynn, no—“ He heard Anthony speak up in aborted protest, then go silent.

And then Wyatt knew: Flynn was going to kill Rufus. And that? Was _not_ okay.

As if struck by the same bolt of lightning, Wyatt and Lucy bucked their captors’ hold. Lucy flung her head backwards, hitting Flynn in his already broken nose and sending the man staggering back, releasing her. Wyatt twisted and writhed, turning the grip of the man who held his arms sideways and freeing one arm. He shoved his elbow back and managed to turn over onto his back.

An elbow slammed hard into his wounded ribs and he felt something give inside, a spear of pain stabbing through him. Lucy screeched—literally _screeched_ —and flung herself at the man, her nails raking his face and sent him spiraling. Wyatt rolled to his side, but Flynn had regained his composure and kicked him soundly in his gut.

Pain flooded Wyatt’s senses.

He couldn’t pull in more than a thin trickle of air, his eyes watering, head pounding, hands shaking. He tried to push himself up, to get out of the way, but a fist crashed against his cheek and he lay dazed, peering out at the world through a veil of agony.

He saw Lucy land on all fours on the other side of him, her hands scrambling for his weapon. She came to her feet, Wyatt’s gun in her hand. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear Rufus shouting for him, but he couldn’t move.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Don’t _touch_ him!”

Something moved near him; a breath, thick with blood, was drawn. “Lucy—“ Flynn started, but Lucy didn’t let him finish.

“I will kill you, I swear to God,” Lucy declared.

“All five of us?” Flynn challenged.

“It won’t matter to you, will it?” Lucy replied. “Since you’ll be the first one.”

Wyatt dragged in a thin breath, feeling his body shudder around him, something sharp digging into his right side like the blade of a knife. He blinked, hard, trying desperately to clear his vision, needing to see where Flynn stood. It took him a moment to realize that Lucy stood over him, straddling his legs, both hands bracing his weapon, aimed directly at Flynn.

“This isn’t over, Lucy,” Flynn predicted, his voice moving away from Wyatt. “You will see. We are meant to end Rittenhouse. _Together_.”

“Not today,” Lucy replied.

Wyatt sensed her turning, shifting around him, as though following movement with the barrel of the weapon she held in her hands. As the pain knifed upwards to his shoulder and across to his left side, Wyatt rolled to his back, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. Unfortunately, that position simply made it harder for him to breathe. Soon he was gasping, desperate for air, feeling pain and pressure in equal measure along his chest.

Without warning, there was suddenly a flurry of movement around him: hands at his face, along his chest, voices swarming without the benefit of structure. He was swimming in a sea of sound and misery. Then someone eased him up slightly so that he was sitting, slumped, leaning against something sturdy and warm, and he could pull in a stuttering, shallow breath. Then another.

And with air came reason. The voices took shape.

“…beat the shit out of him,” Rufus said, the low rumble of his voice vibrating through Wyatt’s back. He realized he was leaning against Rufus, and Lucy’s hands were at his face.

“F-Flynn?” Wyatt gasped.

“He’s gone,” Lucy reassured him, her face swimming blurrily before him. “He’s gone, we’re okay.”

Wyatt tried to pull in a breath but it caught in his throat, choking him and the ensuing cough turned his ribs inside out.

“Why did Mason let him leave?” Lucy cried.

“Had to…had to get you…back,” Wyatt gasped, fighting to bring her face into focus.

He wanted to see her again. He knew he wasn’t supposed to. She wasn’t Jessica. She was off limits. But he just…needed to see her.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy sniffed, tears drawing tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.”

“F-for what?” Wyatt asked.

“I should have fought harder,” Lucy said, cupping his face. “I shouldn’t have let him take me.”

He wanted to tell her it was okay, that he was to blame for not beating Flynn, for not protecting her, but air tripped along the back of his throat again, making him cough. He tasted blood, felt it coat the inside of his mouth, heavy on the back of his tongue.

Pain overwhelmed him for a moment and his vision slipped to white. The only thing he could focus on was drawing a breath. It took every ounce of his energy to pull in that _one_ breath. Once he did, he forced himself to slowly release it, realizing then that he was gripping someone’s hand tight enough to bruise it. He was afraid it was Lucy’s, until he felt her hands at his face again.

“T-take…take her h-home,” Wyatt said, bouncing the hand in his grip once, knowing it was Rufus. “Go.”

“I ain’t leaving you, man,” Rufus told him. “Didn’t leave your ass here in 1918, not going to in ’43.”

He wanted to cry out, the pain slicing through him was _so much_ , but he lacked the air to make a sound. He felt himself arching away from Rufus and pressing against him at once. He clutched his friend’s hand tightly, suddenly recalling the day the IED hit their convoy, how Rhoades lost her leg, how Marcus cried, calling out to his brother for what felt like hours as he gripped Wyatt’s hand.

For a brief, disorienting moment, he felt heat wash over him, felt the grit and burn of sand on his face, tasted salt on his lips. He couldn’t remember if the hand he held was Marcus or Rufus, if the fingers soothing his bruised face were Lucy’s or Jessica’s.

Words flowed around him like water, pain pulling him beneath the surface, determination sending him to the top once more.

“…can’t move him….”

“…lifeboat’s our only chance….”

“…gonna die if we….”

“…gotta go for help….”

His heart felt like a panicked, caged bird. It slammed against his sternum, climbing his throat to block what air he could pull in. Part of him wanted to just give in, let the encroaching darkness win, let it take his pain—all of it, _everything_ —away. But the part that was the warrior, the part that only knew how to fight, that didn’t know how to quit, was stronger. Fiercer.

And it forced his eyes open.

“Easy, easy, man,” Rufus’ voice was near—no longer behind him as before, but near. “We gotcha, Wyatt. We gotcha.”

Someone pulled his uniform open, cutting through the bandages along his ribcage.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Rufus again. He was going to break the man’s hand. “You squeeze as hard as you need to,” Rufus told him. “I can take it.”

Someone else was speaking—someone was talking to Lucy. Was Flynn back?

“Take it easy, Wyatt. It’s okay, it’s not Flynn. He’s a friend.”

He couldn’t understand the words being spoken around him—except for Rufus. The man had swiftly become his lifeline. He blinked, trying to see him, but the figures and faces around him were blurred at the edges, as if there was a filter over his eyes. He felt something cold and wet on his chest and he tried to flinch away, but hands were at his shoulders, at his face, and Rufus held him tight.

Then pain—sharp, clean, like lightning through his tortured system—speared the darkness and he tried to cry out, his voice stolen by agony. And suddenly, he could breathe. Shallowly, but air once more began to fill his lungs, enough that he was able to make a sound.

He whimpered softly, feeling weak.

“That’s it,” he heard Lucy encourage him. “Just breathe, Wyatt. It’s okay.”

He felt something tug once more at his chest, as if his ribs were being wrapped again, but the air tasted so delicious he simply wanted to lay still for a moment and drink it in. He willed the darkness away, pushing it back into the corners of his vision so that he could focus on the faces around him. He saw both Lucy and Rufus bent over him…and then a third face.

Blue eyes peered down at him. He saw white wisps of hair sticking out from beneath a cap that had been turned backwards to keep the bill from interfering. Weathered lines around the eyes and mouth gave the face a sort of lived-in look. Logic told him to be wary, but something else told him to trust.

“Wyatt, this is George Bergѐ,” Lucy said, her accent fluid. “He lives here in Château-Thierry.”

Wyatt swallowed, unable to do much more than stare and breathe at this point.

“The town…,” Lucy glanced over her shoulder. “Some people from the town are headed out to fight a fire just outside the wall. George stopped to see that his friend, Father Aubry, was okay, and…and he found us.”

“How…?” Wyatt rasped.

“You…,” Lucy sniffed, her voice going tight. “You weren’t breathing. Your ribs—Rufus said the doctor back at Mason Industries warned about a collapsed lung.”

He remembered that now. She’d told Rufus to watch out for him, to not let him get hit in the chest. She’d had blue eyes, he remembered. Much like those staring down at him now.

“George was a doctor during the first World War,” Lucy continued. “He saw what was happening to you. He…he knew what to do.”

“Doctor…Berge,” Wyatt managed, gripping Rufus’ hand.

“I know, man,” Rufus whispered. “You might even think someone’s looking out for us.”

“Need to…go,” Wyatt gasped, looking at Lucy.

“No, Wyatt, we aren’t—“

He shook his head, drawing in a slow, shallow breath. “All of us.”

Lucy’s shoulders rounded with relief. “We just need to patch you up, first.” She turned to George and said something rapidly in French. He nodded, then smiled at Wyatt and reaching for him.

“Lucy,” Wyatt said, wincing as George bandaged the incision he’d made in Wyatt’s chest. “How do you…say thank you…for saving my life…in French.”

Lucy smiled. “Merci de m'avoir sauvé la vie.”

Wyatt repeated the phrase slowly, words punctuated by shallow gasps, and George nodded, saying something in return.

“He says you’re welcome, and to think of him with kindness,” Lucy translated.

“I can do better…than that,” Wyatt replied, then closed his eyes and steadied himself as George finished bandaging him. He knew the trip back to the lifeboat was going to be hell.

“George has a vehicle we can borrow,” Lucy revealed.

“Who does…he think we…are?” Wyatt asked, forcing the words through numb-feeling lips.

“Americans,” Lucy replied. “Here to report back on any Nazi activity in this area.”

“ _Are_ there any Nazi’s in this area?” Rufus asked, worriedly.

“Not in ’43,” Lucy reassured him. “We’re safe. For once.”

When George had finished, he and Rufus slowly eased Wyatt to his feet. The world tilted crazily around him for a moment before settling and he found himself leaning heavily on Rufus, one hand instinctively going to his chest. He could feel a thick bandage around a thin metal cylinder protruding from his chest. It felt like part of a gun had been stabbed into him.

“That’s because it was,” Rufus replied. Wyatt didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud. “And you’re going to leave it there until we get back home or you’ll suffocate and I’m not good with that.”

Wyatt nodded, allowing Rufus to lead him to the entrance of the church. He paused once more at the threshold, glancing toward the floor where D’Antonio had died in his arms.

“I thought about him, too,” Lucy revealed. “Corporal D’Antonio, from Queens.”

“Didn’t…even know his first…name,” Wyatt lamented. “Too many wars,” he sighed.

Lucy opened the back swing door of the jeep, helping Rufus and Wyatt climb in, then turned to say something to George before sliding behind the wheel.

“You know how to handle this thing?” Rufus asked her.

“Grind it ‘til you find it,” Lucy replied, then took off as gently as she could.

Wyatt cried out once as the car lurched, then resolutely clenched his jaw against another utterance of pain. He sat in wonder at the difference between this escape from Château-Thierry and the one he and Rufus had managed just hours ago. As Lucy maneuvered them down the now-gravel-covered road, past the dying fire they’d set as a distraction, toward the lifeboat, Wyatt leaned against his friend and watched the sky slip from bruised purple to a soft orange as the sun rose.

“Think we’ll ever…beat Flynn?” He asked quietly, not really expecting an answer.

“Part of me hopes so,” Rufus replied. “But another part of me….”

His voice tapered into silence as Lucy pulled over to the side of the road near a bend that led toward Belleau Woods. Wyatt remembered seeing tanks pause there to fire toward the woods yesterday…over twenty years ago. She turned off the engine and twisted around, slinging her arm over the seat. Her dark eyes rested on Wyatt.

“I want him to pay for what he did to you,” she said solemnly. “ _And_ I want to know if he’s telling the truth about Rittenhouse.”

“You…okay, Lucy?” Wyatt asked, lacking the energy to pull away from Rufus on his own. “Did he hurt you?”

Lucy shook her head. “He was…,” she shrugged, the corner of her mouth pulling up in a rueful smile. “A gentleman. Until we got to the church and he killed the priest, that is. He can actually be…oddly charming.”

“I get that,” Rufus nodded. “In a really creepy…Stockholm syndrome way.”

“Let’s go home before someone finds our boat,” Lucy said.

Wyatt and Rufus nodded, and Wyatt allowed the other man to push him forward so that he could climb free of the jeep. The longer he drew in breath, the stronger Wyatt had started to feel. He spied the lifeboat about fifty yards across the field from where Lucy had parked George’s jeep and began walking. Apparently content to let him try, Rufus and Lucy flanked him, but didn’t touch him.

Wyatt felt each step shimmy through him, his muscles and bones protesting in equal measure. He could feel the bullet graze on his shoulder rub against his torn uniform, the December air probing at the raw wound there. He kept his hand at his chest, just beneath the bandage George had applied. The cold air slid icy fingers beneath his opened shirt and across his bare skin, chilling his fragile lungs with each shallow breath.

He felt like he was walking on legs made of glass, but needed to keep moving forward on his own steam. He was their protector…it was his job to care for them, not the other way around. He felt his body trembling, his breath, his heart stuttering in the cold, each step a monumental effort, but was determined to make it to the lifeboat before allowing his body to give in.

They were about ten feet away from the lifeboat when Rufus suddenly spoke up.

“Wyatt told me. About what happened with you two in ’34.”

Wyatt said nothing, waiting to see if Lucy would reply.

“It was a pretty convincing role,” Lucy conceded. “Even I was convinced.”

Wyatt glanced at her in surprise, stumbling when he took his eye off the focal point of the lifeboat. Lucy reached for him instinctively to steady him, but he pulled away. He could do this. He _had to_ do this.

“I’m okay,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m good.”

He made it exactly two more steps before his knees disappeared and he found himself on his side in a dirt field in rural France, blinking up at a red-tinged sky. He rasped out a rough cough, once more tasting blood on his lips. For a second, panic gripped him, but he exhaled with relief when Lucy’s face came into his field of vision.

“I’m here,” she said softly, her hands once more at his face. “I’m here, Wyatt.”

“I’m sorry I let him take you,” Wyatt whispered, lifting a hand to cover hers on the side of his bruised face. “’m sorry I…didn’t protect you.”

“You came back for me,” Lucy smiled, her eyes shining as her face was bathed in the light of the sunrise. “You didn’t let him keep me.”

Wyatt felt himself shiver, the motion turning the marrow of his bones to magma and threatening his breath once more. His eyes were heavy, so very heavy. He just wanted to rest, just rest for a minute.

“Stay with me, Wyatt,” Lucy demanded. “Stay awake.”

“Lucy…,” he gasped, pinning his eyes to her face, everything else around him fading away. He needed her to know this one last thing, needed her to be okay with it. “I had to…convince him. Clyde.” He dragged in a shallow breath. “Had to make it real.”

He could see tears balanced on the edge of Lucy’s eyelashes, spilling down her cheeks as she blinked, her thumb gently stroking the skin beneath his eyes as though smoothing away his tears.

“It felt real,” she told him. “It was real.”

With that Wyatt exhaled slowly, letting the embrace of darkness fold him close, his chest finally relaxing, breath no longer a battle he had to wage.

* * *

_Present Day_

Lucy could remember exactly three times in her life when she’d felt true, gut-wrenching fear: the car accident back in college, the day she learned of her mother’s diagnosis, and the moment Wyatt Logan closed his blue eyes back in 1943 France, his breath slipping out through a metal piston that had been stabbed into his chest.

When they hadn’t been able to bring him back around, Rufus summoned strength from a deep well Lucy hadn’t realized the man possessed, and dragged Wyatt to the lifeboat, barking commands at Lucy on how to open the door. It took both of them to get Wyatt safely strapped in, the terrifying sound of his wheezing breath enough to send Lucy’s hands shaking. She’d barely been able to fasten her own harness.

Rufus wasted no time getting them home and opening the door; Dr. Berge had been waiting on the platform and before Lucy had climbed from the lifeboat, they’d pulled Wyatt free and had taken him to medical. Agent Christopher was keen to find out details of every second she’d spent in Flynn’s company, but Lucy felt numb.

She’d registered the woman was speaking to her, but couldn’t quite put form and substance to the words spilling over her. Jiya had saved her, saying something about getting cleaned up before debriefing, and had guided her to the locker room. Lucy allowed herself to be manipulated into a hot shower, only just realizing how tired and bruised she felt when the water sluiced over her, soothing her aches and bringing her back to the present.

Jiya had waited for her, handing her a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Toweling her hair dry, Lucy felt like herself again for the first time in what felt like ages.

“They’re operating on him,” Jiya informed her as she dumped the wet towels into a bin. “Rufus is waiting for us in the observation room.”

Lucy didn’t know if she could handle observing someone operate on Wyatt, but she also didn’t want to be very far from her team at this moment. She quietly followed Jiya to where Rufus waited, discretely stepping aside as Rufus wrapped his arms around Jiya, kissing the top of her head, before turning to smile tiredly at Lucy.

“Dr. Berge wanted to know who handled the field surgery,” Rufus informed her. “She thought it was one of us. When I told her about George Bergѐ, I don’t think she knew what to think.”

“I looked him up,” Jiya chimed in. “George was Sophie’s great-great uncle.”

“What are the odds,” Lucy murmured, stepping closer to the glass that separated them from the operating area. “Do you know what they’re doing to him?”

“Dr. Berge said they’d remove the metal tube and seal the puncture in his lung, then stitch him up,” Rufus told her. “Said that assuming no infection or anything, he should be okay.”

“He looks…young,” Lucy commented, her eyes on Wyatt’s bruised face and the thin tube that protruded from his mouth, helping him breathe. “Too young to have been in so many battles.”

“And this job just keeps adding to the list,” Rufus sighed.

Lucy looked back at him. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, releasing Jiya to move closer to the window, standing parallel from Lucy. “Before Flynn stole the mothership, the craziest thing I’d ever done was get a speeding ticket for going twenty over the limit.”

Lucy smiled softly at this admission. She had to agree.

“And now…I’ve broken so many laws…I’ve…,” he looked down at the floor, his voice pitched low, “I’ve killed a man.”

Lucy shot a quick glance at Jiya, and was relieved when the woman held herself still, her expression impassive. Either she already knew, or she didn’t care what Rufus had been forced to do in the course of this job.

“I’m not the same person I was a few months ago,” Rufus concluded. “And part of that is because of him,” he glanced over at Lucy, “and you.”

“Do you like the person you are now?” Lucy asked, needing to know.

Rufus gave her a small smile and reached out his hand. Lucy took it instinctively. “Yeah,” he replied. “I really do.” He released her hand and looked back at Wyatt. “When we were stuck in that church, after Flynn took you, he was…I mean, if I had been beaten up that badly, I’d have just curled up on the floor and cried. Y’know?”

Lucy nodded.

“But Wyatt, he…,” Rufus swallowed and shook his head once, “he was a soldier. Even all broken up inside. There was only one course of action for him: get you back.”

Lucy smiled. “You both did.”

“Yeah, well,” Rufus glanced down.

They stood quietly for several more minutes, watching as Dr. Berge’s team finished stitching and bandaging Wyatt, then prepared to move him to the small recovery room Connor Mason had outfitted when he’d started up this project. Dr. Berge looked through the observation window at them and pulled down her mask, smiling tiredly. Lucy and Rufus exchanged a worried glance as Jiya moved closer to take Rufus’ hand.

Entering the room from the operating theater, Sophie Berge nodded at them.

“He’s going to be okay,” she told them. “We repaired his lung and set his ribs. Gave him some heafty doses of antibiotics. He’ll be pretty sore for a while, and he won’t be running any marathons anytime soon, but as long as he gets some actual rest and gives his body a chance to recover, he’ll be okay.”

“Okay enough to stay on the team?” Rufus asked.

Dr. Berge lifted a shoulder. “I don’t see why not. Unless Agent Christopher has other plans.”

Lucy shook her head. “No other plans,” she stated, exchanging another look with Rufus. “Unless she wants to replace her whole team.”

“Well, he’ll be sleeping for several hours,” Dr. Berge informed them. “I suggest—no, I _insist_ —you both do the same. You can come back and see him in the morning.”

Lucy had lost all sense of time; she glanced at the clock on the wall, only just then registering that it was five in the evening, the same day they’d first left for 1918. She was beyond exhausted.

Dr. Berge started to turn away from them, then paused, looking back over her shoulder. “My grandfather told me a story once, when I was kid.” She turned to face them fully, twisting her mask between her fingers. “His uncle lived in France—my whole family is from the Marne River region; I’m the first generation to be born in America. Anyway, he was a medic in the first World War, but quit when the war ended to become a shopkeeper. Granddad said his uncle wanted some kind of peace.” She tilted her head, her eyes going distant, and Lucy found herself holding her breath as she listened.

“But this one night, during the second World War, there was a…a fire or something, in the village where his uncle lived, and he found an American soldier. There weren’t any Americans in that part of France at the time, so it always stood out for Granddad, like an inaccuracy in his uncle’s story.”

Dr. Berge slid her hand into the pocket of her lab coat and drew out the thin metal tube Lucy had watched George Bergѐ stab into Wyatt’s chest to save his life.

“Granddad never really believed him, not completely. Thought he was embellishing to make his return to medicine more…heroic or something. But I loved that story. The idea that this old man, who’d seen so much death, had saved a life and it made him want to be a doctor again.” She looked up at them, meeting Lucy’s eyes. “I loved it so much, I went to medical school.”

Lucy found the breath she’d been holding had turned into a lump in her throat making it impossible to swallow. She lifted her chin, blinking away the tears that burned the backs of her eyes.

“And…as it turns out,” she held the tube out to Lucy, who opened her hand to accept the small bit of metal, “it was true.”

Lucy nodded, unable to reply.

“Dr. Berge—“

“Sophie,” she interrupted. “I think, if you’re going to tell me about my family, you should probably call me Sophie.”

“Sophie,” Rufus nodded. “George saved Wyatt’s life.”

“What was he like?” Sophie asked softly, her voice trembling for the first time since she’d entered the observation room.

“H-he,” Lucy started, then paused, clearing her throat. “He wasn’t a very big man,” she remembered. “But he had a…a _presence_. The minute he walked into the church, I knew he was a friend.”

“I felt that, too,” Rufus said. “And I couldn’t understand a word he said.”

“He was checking on the priest of that parish,” Lucy continued. “Unfortunately, Flynn had killed him. Wyatt was…was on the ground—he’d saved me from Flynn, but there were too many of Flynn’s men and he was just…just _fighting_ to breathe. We could hear the air,” Lucy wiped unexpected tears from her face with the back of her hand, “wheezing out of him, and his lips were blue.”

“George, he…he was heading toward his friend and he stopped and knelt down next to where we were holding onto Wyatt,” Rufus picked up the story. “He and Lucy started talking—“

“He asked me if he’d been shot, and I told him about the fight, and the bad man who’d killed his friend,” Lucy picked up the story, watching as Sophie seemed to absorb each word. “He asked me if he could help and said he’d been a medic in WWI, and I said yes…and he just….”

“He knew exactly what to do,” Sophie whispered.

Lucy nodded. “He didn’t just save Wyatt,” she whispered, glancing over at Rufus. “He saved all of us.”

“We owe him,” Rufus confirmed. “Which, I guess means we owe you.”

“Consider us even,” Sophie’s smile was watery as she took the thin metal tube back from Lucy. “Because if it hadn’t been for my granddad’s Uncle George, I might have been a political science major.”

Lucy laughed with relief.

“Now, I mean it,” Sophie looked at all three of them. “Get some rest. After all,” she lifted an eyebrow, a half smile on her face, “if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.” She winked at them and left the room.

“Wait, did she just…quote _The Princess Bride_?” Jiya asked, hear head tilting, a bemused smile quirking her lips.

“Yeah, I think she did,” Rufus chuckled. He tugged on her hand. “I think we should follow doctor’s orders.”

“Jiya,” Lucy called out, stopping them. “Do you think you could look up another name for me?”

Jiya took the information from Lucy with a gleam of challenge in her eyes. Lucy wandered slowly from the observation room to wardrobe where she’d left her purse and car keys. She stood in front of her opened locker, staring without seeing. She really didn’t want to go home, regardless of how tired she was. She felt off-balance, incomplete without talking to Wyatt.

“There’s a bunk in the control room,” came a voice to her left, startling her.

She turned quickly, spying Agent Denise Christopher leaning against the doorway of the locker room.

“I mean, if you’re not quite ready to leave.”

Lucy smiled wanly. “Is it that obvious?”

“I made some tea,” Agent Christopher told her. “If you feel like talking.”

Lucy knew she wouldn’t be able to dodge this conversation for long; now was as good a time as any to get it over with. She nodded and followed the other woman to her office, sinking gratefully to the couch and accepting the mug of tea when it was prepared.

“He didn’t hurt you,” Agent Christopher began without preamble.

Lucy shook her head. “No.” She sipped her tea. Chamomile. It made her think of Amy, and her heart panged sharply as it always did at the thought of her sister. “Wyatt asked me the same thing. But Garcia Flynn was a complete gentleman until the moment he killed the priest in Château-Thierry.” She lifted a shoulder. “And then tried to kill my whole team.”

Agent Christopher leaned against her desk, facing Lucy. “Why did he want you, Lucy?”

Lucy hesitated. Rittenhouse was out there, but was her supposed journal that Flynn was using as a guidebook? How much did she reveal?

“Same reason you do,” Lucy replied, going with her gut, thinking on her feet, doing her job. “Because I’m a historian. He thinks the key he stole from Bonnie and Clyde—the one with the Latin on it—will fit some…clock, or something.”

“And what does he think that clock will tell him?” Agent Christopher pressed.

“Something about Rittenhouse, I imagine,” Lucy replied honestly. “He didn’t go into detail. He’d gotten a few pieces of a puzzle and was looking for me to paint him the full picture, help him follow the clues.”

There was a pause as they both sipped their tea, waiting the other one out.

“Did you?”

Lucy looked down. “Not…entirely.”

“But you did help him.”

“I got him to take me back to the church,” she said. “He had a name and I managed to convince him that it was someone of significance in Château-Thierry.”

“And who was it, really?”

Lucy shook her head. “I have no idea. But…a priest died because of me.”

“Because of _Flynn_ ,” Agent Christopher corrected. “You did your job. And from what I hear, your presence in the past was…rather fortuitous for our present.”

They were silent again, long enough for Lucy to think about the paradox of time travel. Sophie Berge was the medic for Mason Industries _before_ they traveled back to 1943, before her great-great uncle saved Wyatt’s life, creating the event that prompted her to become a doctor in the first place. Did that mean everything they were about to do had actually already happened? That it was all pre-destined? That they really couldn’t affect the future, the present? And if that were the case, how did she explain what happened to Amy?

“A person could go mad, thinking of all the possibilities,” Denise Christopher sighed, sounding for a moment like she was simply someone who was tangled in a crazy reality, and not one of the orchestrating members.

“Wyatt wounded one of Flynn’s men,” Lucy revealed, yawning. “If he needs all of them to accomplish…whatever it is he plans next,” she shrugged, “we may have some time.”

“In that case, why don’t you get some rest?” Agent Christopher said, handing Lucy a blanket. “We can talk more tomorrow, after Master Sergeant Logan has had a chance to recover a bit.” She switched off the lamp light, leaving the historian alone in her office.

Part of Lucy wanted to search through Agent Christopher’s desk, see what she knew that she wasn’t telling them, but exhaustion won this battle and Lucy stretched out on the couch, her head pillowed on the bend of her arm, the blanket wrapped around her.

It seemed like it was minutes later when Jiya was gently shaking her awake, but a glance at the clock told Lucy she’d slept for nearly nine hours.

“Wyatt’s awake,” Jiya told her. “Rufus is in there, wanted me to get you.”

Lucy nodded, sitting up slowly and working the feeling back into her hand. Blinking groggily up at the programmer she frowned.

“What is it?”

“I also got that information you asked for,” Jiya told her, handing her a piece of paper.

Lucy took it, brows going up in surprise. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Occasionally,” Jiya smirked. “When the situation calls for it.” She headed toward the office door. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Lucy called out as the door closed behind Jiya.

Lucy made her way to the bathroom to freshen up. She tied her hair into a loose knot, brushed her teeth, and stared at herself for a moment, hoping she could will the puffiness and weary circles away from her eyes. However, when she peeked into Wyatt’s room from the doorway, all thoughts as to her own appearance vanished.

He was sitting up in bed, one leg folded beneath the other to make room for Rufus, who was parked at the end of the bed. He wasn’t wearing a gown or shirt; she could see grey sweatpants peeking out from beneath the covers and a thick white bandage was wrapped around his ribcage, covering most of his torso.

A capped IV catheter was still fixed to the back of one hand, but he wasn’t tethered to the IV line at the moment. A patch of gauze was taped to the bicep of his right arm—a souvenir from the bullet graze that felled him at the church. Bruises framed the left side of his face; his eye was still swollen, the mottled color seeming to enhance the blue of his irises somehow. His mouth was pulled up in a half-smile in response to something Rufus was saying, the cuts on his lip visible from where she lingered in the doorway.

“…went all Sarah Connor on their asses.”

Lucy closed her eyes, her own smile pulling at her lips. “I did _not_ go Sarah Connor on their asses,” she protested stepping into the room. “Sarah Connor had a shotgun.”

“Hey,” Wyatt greeted her, his voice still rough from the breathing tube, but his eyes bright and his smile welcoming.

“Hey,” she replied, leaning against the foot of the bed. “You look like hell.”

Wyatt chuckled, then winced, a hand going to his ribs.

“Hey, now,” Rufus protested. “Even Rocky looked like hell at the end of the movie.”

“Which one?” Wyatt asked, shifting stiffly in the bed. “The one where he won, or the one where he lost?”

Rufus tilted his head. “He pretty much looked like hell at the end of every movie,” he conceded.

Lucy smiled at him, then looked back over at Wyatt.

“How are you?” They asked each other at the same time.

“I’m good,” she replied when he simply stared stubbornly back at her. “Nothing a hot shower and fourteen hours of sleep can’t fix. Your turn.”

Wyatt gave her a half smile. “I’ve…been better.”

“Well, I have something that might help,” she said, moving closer to hand him the paper Jiya had given her.

He opened it one handed, still holding his ribs. “Thomas D’Antonio,” he read, his voice catching.

“I asked Jiya to look him up,” she said, looking at Rufus, then back at Wyatt. She gestured to the back of the paper. “He had two brothers who also served in France. One died in Belgium in 1917, the other one survived and went on to open a restaurant in Queens. His family still owns it.”

“Thank you, Lucy,” Wyatt looked up and she saw tears pooling in his eyes.

Her smile softened. “You’re welcome.”

It was quiet in the room for a moment, then Rufus took a breath. “Listen, I gotta…check on something,” he stood up, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

“She’s waiting for you in the control room,” Lucy smirked, raising an eyebrow as she glanced over at him.

Rufus shook his head at her, his smile automatic.

“I’m happy for you,” Wyatt held out a hand, which Rufus gently shook. “You saved my ass out there, Rufus. You’re a good friend. And a helluva soldier.”

Rufus sobered. “Y’know…your job may be to kill Flynn and watch our backs, but…,” he ducked his chin, leveling his eyes on Wyatt, “that doesn’t mean you’re expendable. We need you, man. In one piece.”

“Yeah, okay,” Wyatt replied softly.

After a few seconds more, Rufus nodded and began to turn away. Suddenly he paused, pulling something from the pocket of his hoodie.

“I almost forgot,” he said, dropping an iPod and earbuds in Wyatt’s lap. “You left that in the conference room before. Thought it might help, y’know. With sleeping.”

Wyatt smiled. “Thanks, man.”

Rufus nodded, glanced at Lucy, then left the room. Lucy stood quietly, feeling suddenly awkward without the balance of Rufus’ presence.

“You heading out, too?” Wyatt asked, pushing back the covers and gingerly swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“No, I—should you be doing that?”

“I need to move,” Wyatt said, slightly breathless as he gripped the bed rail and carefully, slowly pulled himself to his feet. “I feel…like I’m…like I’m stuck here or something….”

She was around the side of the bed before she realized she was moving, at his side as he swayed once upright. She fit herself under his right arm like a missing piece of his puzzle, holding him steady until he caught his balance and his breath.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I kinda get it,” she told him. “Window?”

He nodded and they moved slowly across the room until they stood in front of the window. She could feel slight tremors float beneath his skin where his body was flush against hers. He gripped the windowsill, leaning forward until his forehead pressed against the glass, his eyes on the horizon visible from the third floor of Mason Industries. The sun was bright that day, skimming the surrounding tarmac and vehicles with a flinty, metallic light.

“There were moments back in France,” Wyatt began, “when I couldn’t…I almost thought I was…somewhere else.”

“Syria?” Lucy guessed, resting her hand on his chest to help keep him balanced. He was taller than her, and the weight of his muscle against her was starting to make her back ache. But she had no interest in letting go.

He nodded. “And…other places. With other teams. Men I lost; men who saved me. It was all…,” he shook his head. “It was kind of tangled up. I swear if anything had happened to Rufus when we were getting out of that church, I—“

“But nothing happened. And you both got out. And got me back.”

“Yeah, but, Lucy…I’m a lot more messed up than I realized. And not because of Jessica. Well,” he frowned, his expression pained. “Not _just_ because of her.”

The soft confession turned inside of her like a corkscrew, drilling a core of fear into her heart. She couldn’t do this without him. She didn’t _want_ to. Even knowing that meant she couldn’t fix the timeline to return Amy to her life…she needed Wyatt there. His strength, his trust, his determination.

“’s like I…hit this breaking point a long time ago and I didn’t even realize….” His voice had gone rough, as though the sound was dragging itself over shards of glass in its escape. “I thought I could still be this…protector. Still be a soldier. Do my job. Just put all this shit away somewhere and keep going.”

“You are the protector,” she insisted, quietly. “You’re _our_ protector.”

He shook his head, his eyes still on the tarmac below them, but she could tell he wasn’t seeing it. “I almost got both of you killed this time because I didn’t…I _couldn’t_ kill him.”

“There were extenuating circumstances,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but…,” he closed his eyes. “That shouldn’t have mattered. They train us so that it doesn’t matter.”

She was quiet for a moment, watching him. “You’re not broken, Wyatt.”

He didn’t respond. A muscle flexed in his jaw.

“Whatever point you think you crossed, you _are_ doing your job. You’re still a soldier.”

“I never planned on being a soldier,” Wyatt said suddenly. “It…honestly never even occurred to me, until….”

“Let me guess,” Lucy replied softly. “9/11.”

“My grandfather was a soldier. My father…,” Wyatt lifted a shoulder, inadvertently tightening his grip on Lucy, “he was a rancher. Pure Texas, all the way, everyone else be damned.”

“Is that what you were going to be?” Lucy asked, remembering what he’d said before about his father. “A cowboy?”

Instead of answering, Wyatt rotated his head on the glass until his eyes met hers. “You ever think what your life would be like if you hadn’t gotten into that wreck?”

“All the time, lately,” she confessed.

“It’s like we’re all…,” he sighed and she felt the tremors increase along his back muscles, “we’re all just walking this tightrope. And we have no idea. Because to us, it looks like a highway, all sturdy and straight. But really, it’s this thin…thread. Tied to a million other threads, like a giant…spider web of what ifs. Maybes. Almosts.”

“Wyatt…,” Lucy breathed, his words pulling at something in her chest, unraveling it until she felt as though her heart was pooling at her feet.

He lifted his head from the glass, still meeting her eyes, the bruises on his face turning his gaze intense.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” she confessed, her hand still at his chest, holding him upright, feeling his heart slam against his wounded ribs.

“I didn’t mean to…make this confusing,” he admitted. “I just…I needed….”

“To play the role, I know.”

He shook his head, rotating away from the window, keeping his hand on the sill for balance. “No, not that, I…. I needed…to know if I _could_.”

She searched his face, realizing that he hadn’t meant if she’d let him, but if he were able.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I promise,” she nodded, when his brows flexed in doubt. “I understand…more than you realize.”

He started to say something else, releasing the window sill, but swayed dangerously, paling suddenly and closing his eyes.

“Whoa, there, solider,” Lucy gripped him tighter.

“Sorry,” Wyatt breathed, forcing his eyes open. “Tired.”

“How about we sit down for a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, shakily.

She led him back across the room and helped him swing his legs back onto the bed. Impulsively, she climbed onto the bed next to him, lying so that their shoulders touched, much as they had back in the narrow bed they’d borrowed from Bonnie and Clyde. Turning to her side so that she could face him, Lucy smiled at his confused expression.

“The weirdest thing about there being a Noah in my life—in this version of my life,” Lucy started, watching his eyes balance on hers, taking her in, listening with every part of him, “is that I never had time for someone like him before. Between school and work and then mom and Amy…having a love life…a _real_ one…that just wasn’t on the radar.”

She shifted, picking up the iPod that had dropped onto the bed when he’d gotten up.

“What you and Jessica had…what you lost, Wyatt, I—“ she paused, taking a breath. “I can’t imagine how that feels. The kind of hole that would leave inside you.”

His eyes didn’t leave her face, but she saw the tears burning there.

“And what we’ve found…the three of us, this crazy team we’ve built…,” she smiled softly at him, feeling her lips tremble with the weight of her words, “it’s not meant to fill that hole.”

He blinked, looking down at her mouth, then back at her eyes.

“But if there is one thing I’ve learned in the last few weeks, after all we’ve survived,” she continued, “it’s that we have _no_ idea what our future holds. And that _every_ choice matters. So, we have to choose carefully. Because life is precious. Your life. _Our_ lives.”

He nodded and she could feel the fine tremors sliding through his body, spilling into hers at the touch of their shoulders.

“I don’t want you to make a choice you’re not ready to make,” she concluded, her voice barely above a whisper. “And, I want you to know…I don’t plan on leaving any time soon.”

His wounded lips pulled back in a half-smile and he reached up to touch her face, tracing a finger down her cheek to her chin. Lucy held her breath, feeling a current twist inside her at the contact, wrapping like a zephyr around her heart. He swallowed, his hand sliding down from her chin to drop to the pillow between them.

For another moment, she watched him, then she turned and held up the iPod.

“What do you got on this thing? NPR Podcasts?”

Wyatt stilled, then chuckled slightly, accepting her shift in topic. He allowed her to put one of the earbuds into his right ear, the other into her left. She slid her thumb along the iPod screen to the library and smiled.

“Going through a grunge phase, are we?” she teased.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with Pearl Jam,” he protested, his tone light.

“Oh, believe me,” she replied, her eyebrows raised as she queued up _Elderly Woman Behind A Counter In A Small Town_ , “I like me some Eddie Vedder.”

She felt him begin to relax, his shoulder pressing comfortably against hers. She wondered when the last time was he’d gotten any real sleep, especially as Rufus and Jiya had revealed his nocturnal habits since returning from ’34 hadn’t exactly included down time at home. He let her scroll through his song library, smiling as he shared brief anecdotes about different songs—mostly regarding his youthful antics or men he served with—making her laugh.

“You _do_ know there’s been music recorded since 2007,” Lucy commented wryly.

“You’re kidding,” Wyatt dead-panned, his body relaxed. “I don’t believe it.”

“Wait, what’s this? Smokey Robinson?”

“He’s a classic,” Wyatt defended.

She shook her head. “You’re a complicated man, Wyatt Logan.”

“’s a complicated world,” he mumbled sleepily, slumping a bit more against her.

She scrolled to _The Tracks of My Tears_ and let it play, relaxing back against the pillow. After a moment, she felt his head on her shoulder, the warmth of his body flush against her side. She lay still for another minute listening to the music and to his breathing, registering when it grew slow and heavy, peace stilling the tremors that had been relatively constant until that moment.

Smokey Robinson gave way to Alice In Chains and Lucy let the music pick her heart up and set it back in her chest, looking down at where his lashes brushed against the bruised skin around his closed eyes, his wounded lips parted in sleep, the lines of pain and vigilance softening so that he appeared young, almost worry-free.

She thought about his comment, about passing the breaking point without realizing it. She wondered if, in some small way, they had all done that—Wyatt, Rufus, and herself. It may not have been what _brought_ them together, but perhaps it was what _held_ them together. Three people, each broken in some way, finding a way to mend through each other.

The hand that rested between them twitched as his subconscious fought rest and she gently picked it up, sliding her fingers through his and held it against her, soothing his instinct to fight, his need to always be on guard.

“Let someone else be the protector,” she whispered against his hair. “Just this once.”

Exhaling slowly, Lucy rested her head against his, and thought about the circumstances that had brought this man—this team—into her life. The knowledge of what was possible, of what was lost, of who they were before and who they are now tumbled in her mind, words and possibilities crowding around each other, each one begging to be heard. To be seen.

Given the chance, would she go back to before, with her sister alive and her mother dying? Would she go back to before, when she knew nothing of time travel, of Rufus Carlin, of Wyatt Logan? Would she go back to an uncomplicated past of believing she knew who her father was, what her purpose was?

Wyatt flinched again in his sleep, his fingers tightening around hers, and she pressed closer to him, as though she could provide him some solace by her presence alone. She thought of Sophie Berge, of her great-great uncle, Corporal D’Antonio, Father Aubry, of the lives they’d saved and the ones they’d sacrificed.

The music played on, and Lucy held onto Wyatt, listening to him breathe, and wondered how long they’d each be able to balance on this particular thread until time or circumstance altered their path. However long it was, she knew she never wanted a reality where Lucy Preston did not know Wyatt Logan.

No matter what kind of present their past led them to.

FIN. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **a/n** : So. A few notes on this one. 
> 
> First, the Battle of Belleau Wood took place from June 1-26, 1918. The battle was fought between the U.S. 2nd and 3rd Divisions along with French and British forces against an assortment of German units. The battle has become a key component of the “lore” of the United States Marine Corps. For example, in Part One of this story, Wyatt repeats a famous quote attributed to Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, a recipient of two Medals of Honor, when he says, “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” 
> 
> The battle was fought near the Marne River in France. Château-Thierry is also located on the Marne River and, according to Wikipedia, it’s about 5 miles southeast of the Aisne-Marne Sector, where some of the fighting took place. _That being said_ , I have never been to this area of France and took some rather broad artistic liberties with the location of Château-Thierry and the description of the town. No offence was meant with any inaccuracies of the town, or its proximity to Belleau Wood.
> 
> Second, I am not a doctor ( _obviously_ ), but I did learn that physicians in 1943 had learned to treat a pneumothorax using the method (loosely) described in the story when they were attempting to treat tuberculosis. Now, if a man in rural France who hadn’t practiced medicine in over twenty years would have kept up with the latest medical procedures, I can’t honestly say. But I thought it made for a good story element, so there you go. Ah, the magic of fiction.
> 
> Finally, Matt Lanter, who plays Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan in the show, was in a movie earlier in 2016 called _USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage_ where he played a US Navy sailor by the name of ‘Bama.’ His character’s best friend was a kid from New York, who went by the name D’Antonio. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story.


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